s, an' Unc' Fletch's bounties was enough ter enable him
ter lift ther mortgage on ther farm."

"I guess that will do for to-night," said Ted, laughing. "I'm going to
hit the blankets, for it's up at daylight for all of us. I only hope
your pet coon does not attract so many others as to turn this sign camp
into a coon hotel."

CHAPTER V.

THE PHANTOM LINE RIDER.

For several days the weather remained fine, and the cattle were able to
get accustomed to their new range and become hardened.

The boys at the sign camps took things easy. In each sign camp were two
boys, one of whom rode days, and the other nights, when it was necessary
in bad weather to hold the cattle from drifting.

In order to keep in touch with one another the riders started from their
camps and met midway between, in order to exchange notes as to the
condition of the cattle and other things necessary to the welfare of the
whole herd.

There was another reason for this constant interchange of communication
between the camps.

Ted had received a warning from the town of Bubbly Creek, a small cattle
station, about twenty miles from the Long Tom Ranch, where there was a
cattleman's hotel, a few saloons, and an outfitting store, to look out
for the Whipple gang, which had its rendezvous in the Sweet Grass
Mountains.

Fred Sturgis, in the last letter Ted had received from him, had also
mentioned this gang of thieves and desperadoes, whose operations
extended from Canada, into which they made extensive raids when the
Canadian Mounted Police happened to be out of that part of the country,
as far south as the central portion of Montana.

"I have had considerable trouble with the Whipple gang myself," Sturgis
wrote, "but as yet I have never seen but one member of the gang to know
it. I have had plenty of cattle stolen, and have always attributed the
thefts to the Whipples. All I know about the gang is that it was founded
by a fellow named Whipple, an outlaw on the scout, who attracted to
himself a desperate gang of fugitives from justice who had taken refuge
in the Sweet Grass Mountains.

"I have never seen Whipple himself, but from those who claim to know him
he is described as an enormous man of prodigious strength, and a perfect
brute, who has forced his men into absolute subjection by his acts of
brutality toward them.

"With Whipple are a number of bad Indians, who have fled from the
various reservations in Montana after having committ