gely in his mind. When he received a shipment of goods he set
the selling-price by multiplying the cost by two and adding the
freight; which saved much calculating. Frank's notions of "mine" and
"thine," Lang discovered, moreover, were elastic. His depredations
were particularly heavy against a certain shipment of patent medicine
called "Tolu Tonic," which he ordered in huge quantities at the
company's expense and drank up himself. The secret was that Frank, who
had inherited his father's proclivities, did not like the "Forty-Mile
Red Eye" brand which Bill Williams concocted of sulphuric acid and
cigar stumps mixed with evil gin and worse rum; and had found that
"Tolu Tonic" was eighty per cent alcohol.

Seeing these matters, and other matters for which the term
"irregularity" would have been only mildly descriptive, Gregor Lang
sent Sir John a report which was not favorable to Frank Vine's regime.
Sir John withdrew from the syndicate in disgust and ordered Lang to
start a separate ranch for him; and Gorringe himself began to
investigate the interesting ways of his superintendent. Why Lang was
not murdered, he himself was unable to say.

Lang had made it his business to acquire all the information he could
secure on every phase of the cattle industry, for Sir John was avid of
statistics. Roosevelt asked question after question. The Scotchman
answered them. Joe Ferris, Lincoln, and a bony Scotch Highlander named
MacRossie, who lived with the Langs, had been asleep and snoring for
three hours before Gregor Lang and his guest finally sought their
bunks.

It was raining when they awoke next morning. Joe Ferris, who was
willing to suffer discomfort in a good cause, but saw no reason for
unnecessarily courting misery, suggested to Roosevelt that they wait
until the weather cleared. Roosevelt insisted that they start the
hunt. Joe recognized that he was dealing with a man who meant
business, and made no further protest.

They left Lang's at six, crossing the Little Missouri and threading
their way, mile after mile, eastward through narrow defiles and along
tortuous divides. It was a wild region, bleak and terrible, where
fantastic devil-carvings reared themselves from the sallow gray of
eroded slopes, and the only green things were gnarled cedars that
looked as though they had been born in horror and had grown up in
whirlwinds.

The ground underfoot was wet and sticky; the rain continued all day
long. Once, at a distanc