ey tie into this yere
outfit, now I'm tellin' yuh!"

Lite Avery, who had gone prowling down the draw by himself, came back
to camp, tilting stiff-leggedly along in his high-heeled boots and
betraying, in every step he took, just how handicapped a cowpuncher is
when set afoot upon the range and forced to walk where he has always
been accustomed to ride. He stopped to give Pink's exhausted horse a
sympathetic pat on the shoulder, and came on, grinning a little with the
comers of his mouth tipped down.

"Here's what's left of the hobbles the buckskin wore," he said, holding
up the cut loops of a figure-eight rope hobble. "Kinda speaks for
itself, don't it?"

They crowded around to inspect this plain evidence of stealing.
Afterwards they stood hard-eyed and with a flush on their cheek-bones,
considering what was the best and wisest way to meet this emergency. As
to hunting afoot for their horses, the chance of success was almost
too small to be considered at all, Pink's horse was not fit for further
travel until he had rested. There was one pair of field glasses--and
there were nine irate men to whom inaction was intolerable.

"One thing we can do, if we have to," Luck said at last, with the
fighting look in his face which moving-picture people had cause to
remember. "We can help ourselves to any horses we run across. Applehead,
how's the best way to go about it?"

Applehead, thus pushed into leadership, chewed his mustache and eyed the
mesa sourly. "Well, seein' they've set us afoot, I calc'late we're
jest about entitled to any dang thing we run across that's ridable," he
acceded. "'N' the way I'd do, would be to git on high groun' with them
glasses 'n' look fer hosses. 'N' then head fer 'em 'n' round 'em up
afoot 'n' rope out what we want. They's enough of us t' mebby git a
mount apiece, but it shore ain't goin' t' be no snap, now I'm tellin'
ye. 'N' if yuh do that," he added, "yuh want t' leave a man er two in
camp--'n' they want to keep their dang eyes peeled, lemme tell yuh! Ef
we was t' find ourselves afoot an' our grub 'n' outfit stole--"

"We won't give them that chance at us." Luck was searching with his eyes
for the nearest high point that was yet not too far from camp. "I think
I'll just take Andy up on that pinnacle there, and camp down by that
pile of boulders. The rest of you stay around camp and rest yourselves
while you've got the chance. In a couple of hours, Applehead, you and
Lite come up and take