r our health and as good a
time as we can have."

"Ye can't fool me. That line of talk don't go down at all I'll tell
you what. Bill McKay thought to trap some folks by getting in a bunch
that wasn't known down in these parts. I had his little game sized up
the minute I set eyes on your bunch. But I'll clip your claws. I'll
show McKay that we ain't so easy. Now you out with the whole story.
If you tell it straight, I may think about letting you go. If you lie
it's the end of you. I'd as lief shoot you full of holes as I would
a yellow dog. Now what's your orders?"

"I haven't any orders, I tell you."

"What did Bill McKay reckon you would do down here?"

"I don't know Bill McKay, I don't know any Texas Rangers, and if they
are anything like you and your kind, I don't want to know them. But I
do want to tell you that if you don't let me go---that if you heap any
more insults on me---it is you who will get a bullet through your
miserable hide. I'm getting mad, Mr. Man."

"Oho! Ye be, eh?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then I reckon there's only one thing to do to put ye in a better frame
of mind," answered the mountaineer, shifting his rifle about
suggestively. "Now I'll give ye two minutes to open up and tell all ye
know," was the stern announcement.

In the meantime Tad Butler had not been idle. As the reader already
knows, Tad had been deceived as to the location of the shot. He had
gone a long distance out of his course. After a time he realized this
and at once started back toward the plain. It was his intention to
make the opening where they had first sought to make camp, as it was
there or in that vicinity that he was to meet Ned Rector.

The lad settled down to a trot. Every faculty was on the alert, for
Butler was a natural woodsman, added to which was an experience of
some two or three years in mountain and on plain until Tad was familiar
with many of the tricks of the mountaineer.

Suddenly the boy halted and stood with head thrown back sniffing the
air.

"Smoke!" breathed Tad. "There is a fire somewhere near here. That
means some one is in camp here. I can't be far from the edge now.
I must find out where the fire is."

After a few moments of sniffing the lad decided that smoke lay off
obliquely to the right of him. Having decided upon this he started
in the direction named, but proceeded with much more caution than
before as he did not wish to stumble upon strangers until he had first