ng by a thread,
and a thin thread at that. They were but two against many, and
their position had not been aided by the string of uneventful days
succeeding their advent at the Bar S. For their enemies were taking
their time in the launching of their enterprise. And Racey had not
expected this. It threw him off his balance somewhat. Certainly it
worried him.

It was not humanly possible that Jack Harpe could be aware that Old
Man Saltoun did not believe what Racey had told him. But he was acting
as if he knew. Perhaps he was waiting till Nebraska Jones should be
entirely well of his wound. That was possible, but not probable. Jack
Harpe had not impressed Racey as a man who would allow his plans to
be indefinitely held up for such a cause. There was no telling
when Nebraska would be up and about. His recovery, thanks to past
dissipations, had been exceedingly slow.

Again, perhaps the delay might be merely a detail of the plan Fat
Jakey Pooley mentioned in his letter to Luke Tweezy, or it might be
due to the more-than-watchful care the Dales and Morgans were taking
of old Mr. Dale. Wherever the old gentleman went, some one of his
relations went with him. Certainly no ill-wisher had been able to
approach Mr. Dale (since his spree at McFluke's) at any time. Mr.
Dale, to all intents and purposes, was impossible to isolate.

At any rate, whatever the reason, the fact remained that Harpe had not
moved and showed no signs of moving. Mr. Saltoun, every time he met
Racey, took special pains to ask his puncher how much twice six times
two hundred was. Then Mr. Saltoun, without waiting for an answer,
would walk off slapping his leg and cackling with laughter. Even Tom
London was beginning to take the view that perhaps his father-in-law
was in the right, after all.

"You been here near two months now, Racey," he had said that very
morning, "and they ain't anything happened yet."

"I've got four months to go," Racey had replied with a placidity he
did not feel.

Now as he rode, his eyes closely scanning the various places in the
landscape providing good cover for possible bushwhackers, he recalled
what Loudon had said.

"I'll show him all the happenstances he wants to see before I'm
through," he said, aloud. "Something's gonna happen. Something's got
to happen. Jack Harpe won't let this slide. Not by a jugful."

The words were confident enough, but they were words that he had been
in the habit of repeating to himself near