Steve Yeager

only playing at work with the film company. When he heard some of the others complain about long hours and dangerous stunts he wished they could have ridden on the roundup for the Lone Star outfit

ozen times some lean steer had bolted and gone racing down a precipitous hillside like a rabbit. As often Four Bits had wheeled in its tracks and pounded through clutching cholla and down breakneck inclines after the escaping three-year-old. Fierce cactus thorns

o a valley green and beautiful with the magic touch of spring. A grove of suhuaro rose like ghostly candelabra from the hillside opposit

r an hour they had seemed to smell water and the leaders made a bee-line for it, bellowing wit

e camp in the cool of the mor

oiled coffee and fried bacon. Bread they had brought

ut Yeager divided his party so that they should take tu

Many a time before the range-rider had felt the fascination of it creep into his blood as he had circled the sleeping herd murmuring softly a Spanish love

the Lunar Company upon the canvas. In his time he had mushed in Alaska, fought in Mexico, driven stage at the Nevada go

reels popular. Steve was engaged in a whirlwind flirtation with her which both of them were enjoying extremely. He liked her slangy audacity, the frank good-fellowsh

I wouldn't rock the boat if I was

e curt command. A rope dropped over his arms and was jerked tight just below the knees. Very cautiously a man emerged from behind a clump of cho

e knew that he would find out all about it i

ars. Drop 'em down clost to your sides. That's fine.

ge of his prisoner's eyes. He was masked and wore a soft black hat pulled well down over

ope round and round his body, after which he knotted it tigh

ul man of about his own height. He wore plain shiny leat

inging with them Orman and Shorty, both of whom, wakened o

'. There ain't no occasion whatever for a gun play. What d'you want, anyhow? I'm no bad hombre

eyes. He was a slight, short person with the walk and bearing of a youth. He wore for a mask a red ban

and was giving explicit directions which he expected to be obeyed to the letter. After tying up Shorty and Yeager, the Mexicans and the younger man disappear

e of the guerilla insurgents operating in the wilds of that state. Once they were safe in Mexico the cattle would be sold to old Pasquale for a fraction of their r

ld to a somber silence, smoking moodily, a vigilant eye on his prisoners. Two or three times he

f you fellas make a move to free yourself inside of half

moving away i

ague for most three hours expecting that doggoned holdup to blow the

nto Sonora. It don't take any wi

he rustlers was already half a mile away, lengthening the distance between them at every stride of his galloping horse. The range-rider knew that t

hen the ropes had been tightened and he had braced the muscles of his arm against the pressure of the folds. Ten minutes of stead

across country toward Los Robles. His friends he had left to follow on foot as best they could. He had a very particular reaso

ht the horse slithering to a halt and with one lithe swing of his body landed on the ground in front o

tel the last thirty minut

n not. There was Mr. Simmons-bu

ody

. W

three at a time, and followed the corridor to

wanted to kno

r, Mr. Threewit.

o-morrow to see m

ness won

Presently he opened the door and stood rev

want, my an

been he

t's fat good-natured face. "Well, I'll bet

cattle he wanted. They've driven them

ly. "That's different. U

old it in s

ow any of the holdups. T

ector. "But I've got a fool notion just the same that

ut

the talking

. Just because you and

e he could help us straighten out this thing. Got to pull together, haven'

the room of the heavy on the third floor. Yea

tly the door was flung open and Harrison stood bl

" he growled, sc

arnell's by rustlers. They drove t

le under the bed." The heavy jaw of the prizefighter stood out saliently. Unconsciously h

d. Mr. Threewit comes from the East and don't know anythin

mean you th

. "Why, o' course we came to you for a

on the lowering face? Steve could not be sure. "Well, I'll dre

x miles back that we threw off the trail and camped. I figured on getting in early in the forenoon. Well, I was night-herding when I got orders to punch a hole in t

if you saw him?" interrupt

certain tension. The younger man smiled. "Why, how could I, seeing he was masked? He

eer, derision in the half-shuttered eye

color as yours," added Stev

rizefighter shot out. "Mea

ve in amiable surprise

every buzzard-head's

expected to see these in plain view he was not disappointed. A belt with a scabbarded revolver lay on the table. The extra wondered whether it was the same weapon that

d himself pointedly to Threewit. "Send back to old man Yarnell's

rustlers

o explain how-come your faithful cowboys to drap asleep and let the bunch

led, sayin

Mr. Threewit. If you recollect, I told you some o

the director. "Did it strike you he was a leetle too sleepy at f

ed at two a.m., to hear bad news, and the director was merely human. "

bi ready-didn't leave any evidence floating around loose in his room. He must have come up the back way so as to slip

rlock Holmes

ut to the stables we find one of the hor

it promptly. "Wait just a jiff

a of the company, had been brought in from a long hard run within the past half-hour. It

it. "But that doesn't prov

t giving me a week

at

bbe I might run acrost those cattle that str

t him sharply. "All r