ip-yip_ of a coyote.

"Hey!" Anse stood up knee-high in the water.

"What's the matter?" Drew called.

"Thought I saw somethin' movin' over there!"

Drew took a scrambling leap out of the water to their tangle of clothing,
his hand reaching for one of the Colts in the belt he had left carefully
on top of the pile. All those stories of Apaches weaseling into touching
distance of the guard at the Stronghold.... Why, only last year the
younger Rivas boy had had his throat slit out in the hay field within
sight of his home!

The Kentuckian crouched, alert, Anse beside him now, both listening for
any suspicious sound. At last they huddled into their clothes, hurried
back to the bunkhouse. Bartolome was there waiting for them.

"You Tejanos--" There was no pretense of friendliness in his hail. "The
_patron_ will see you, pronto!"

They went, tugging their clothing into order as they paused outside the
door. Drew rapped, took the sound from within as an invitation, and pushed
aside the heavy oak planks.

Outwardly the room was unchanged. No one had moved those old Spanish
chests, the skin rugs, the table, since his last visit there. But he had
the feeling that it was chill now, cold, as if a hearth fire had been
allowed to die into ashes. Perhaps that thought crossed his mind because
Hunt Rennie stood by the fireplace moving the toe of his boot back and
forth across a smear of gray powder. His back greeted them unwelcomingly,
and the silence lengthened uncomfortably until Drew did as he always had
and met the unpleasant head-on.

"You wanted us, suh?" It was like being back in the army. Even his arm
twitched as if some muscle was activated by memory to make one of those
informal military salutes the scouts favored.

Hunt Rennie did turn now. His eyes leveled on them. In the light of the
candles his cheeks looked even more hollow tonight, and he moved stiffly
as might a man who was not only bone-tired in body, thought Drew, but
weary in mind as well.

"You are Anson Kirby?" he addressed the Texan first.

"Yes, suh." Anse, too, must be caught up in the same web of memory. That
was his old report-to-the-commanding-officer voice.

"I understand you two thought it necessary to take on some troopers in the
Jacks."

What was the proper reply to that? Drew wondered. Probably it was best to
follow the old army rule of keep the mouth shut, never volunteer, no
explanations. If Hunt Rennie had had the story from Topham or