he memory of his fearful experience
flashed over him.

"It's one of the unpleasant things of the country," responded Paul, with
a little laugh. "But how came you in it?" with a glance down at the
spurs on the man's boots.

"I see you are looking at my spurs. Yes, I had a horse, but he is gone
now."

"Gone! In the sink hole?" ejaculated Chet.

"No; he was stolen from me."

"Stolen!" Both boys uttered the word simultaneously.

"Yes. I was riding along when I came to a spot where I saw some flora
which particularly interested me, for I am a botanist, although for
pleasure only. I dismounted and tied my horse to a tree and climbed up
to secure the specimens which were on a shelf of rock some thirty feet
over my head. Soon I heard a clatter of horses' hoofs as they passed
along the road. I came down with my specimens to see who the riders
were, but they had already passed on, taking my horse with them."

"The horse thieves!" cried Chet.

And he told the man of the raid made on the ranch and how Allen had gone
off in pursuit of the thieves. The reader can well imagine with what
interest Noel Urner listened to the tale.

"One would not believe it possible!" he exclaimed, when Chet had wound
up by saying he wished Allen would lay every one of the rascals low. "I
fancied horse thievery was a thing only permitted in the wildest
portions of the territories."

"There are horse thieves everywhere," said Paul. "Every one living for a
hundred miles around has suffered during the past ten years. Sometimes
we think them wiped out, and then, all of a sudden they start up again."

"Well, I trust your brother gets your horses back," said Noel Urner.
"It's a pity he won't know enough to take mine away from the thieves,
too!"

"He'll collar the thieves and all they have, if he gets half a chance,
you can depend on that," said Chet. "But won't you come to our ranch
with us? You can clean up there and have something to eat if you are
hungry."

"Thank you, I will go gladly. Possibly you can sell me a headgear of
some sort too."

"We can fit you out all right enough, sir."

It did not take the boys long to chase the cattle away from the sink
hole, and this accomplished, they set off for the ranch with Noel Urner
between them.

They found the young man an exceedingly bright and pleasant chap. He
said he had come west two months before and had been spending over a
month in San Francisco.

"I came out at the invitation of an