ook up.

"I got him, Sheriff," he said. "Work up to the other end and I'll go back
to where I came from. They have got all the fighting they have any use for
and will be backing away purty soon now. The range from the point where I
held you is some closer than it is from here, so you ought to get in a
shot when they get far enough back."

"All right," pleasantly responded Shields, vigorously attacking the thorns
as he began his journey to the western end of the thicket. "Ouch!" he
exclaimed as he felt the pricks. Then he stopped and slowly turned and
saw The Orphan smiling at him, and grinned:

"Say," he began, "why can't I go around?" he asked, indicating with a
sweep of his arm the southern edge of the chaparral, and intimating that
it would be far more pleasant to skirt the thorns than to buck against
them. "These d------d thorns ain't no joke!" he added emphatically.

The outlaw's smile enlarged and he glanced quickly at the bowlder to see
that all was as it should be.

"You can go around in one day afoot," he replied. "By that time
they"--pointing to the Apaches--"will have made a day's journey on
cayuses. And we simply mustn't let them get the best of us that way."

Shields grinned and turned half-way around again: "It's a whole lot dry
out here," he said, "and my canteen is on my cayuse."

"Here, pardner," replied The Orphan, holding out his canteen and watching
the effect of the familiarity. "Seven swallows is the dose."

The sheriff faced him, took the vessel, counted seven swallows and
returned it.

"I'm some moist now," he remarked, as he returned to the thorns. "It's
too d------n bad you're bad," he grumbled. "You'd make a blamed good
cow-puncher."

The Orphan, still smiling, placed his hands on hips and watched the
rapidly disappearing arm of the law.

"He's all right--too bad he'll make me shoot him," he soliloquized,
turning toward his post. As he crawled through a particularly badly matted
bit of chaparral he stopped to release himself and laughed outright. "How
in thunder did he get so far west? My trail was as plain as day, too."
When he had reached his destination and had settled down to watch the
bowlder he laughed again and muttered: "Mebby he figured it out that I
was doubling back and was laying for me to show up. And that's just the
way I would have gone, too. He ain't any fool, all right."

He thought of the sheriff at the far end of the chaparral and of the
repeater he carried, an