Johnny entered the draw, found a small clearing, and let Pepper wander, watching her closely, while he went over his guns again, cleaning them thoroughly. The afternoon had half gone when he whistled her to him and rode her down to the rocky pool he had mentioned. Stripping himself, he removed the saddle and its blanket and, mounting bareback, rode her into the stream, where he found a place deep enough to swim her. Crossing and recrossing this several times, he took her out and started to dress; and no sooner was she free than she trotted to a dry, warm patch of sand and rolled to her heart\'s content, grunting with pleasure.

"Now look at what you\'ve done," he grinned. "After me gettin\' you all washed up, you go an\' blot yoreself just like a common cayuse. I\'ve been wastin\' sympathy on you—there ain\'t nothin\' th\' matter with you. An\' there\'s somethin\' I want to ask you, before I forget it: Was you ever in a quicksand just like that one? I bet you wasn\'t. I\'ve crossed some rivers in my time, an\' had cattle bogged in several—but this was different, somehow. Mebby it\'s because it wasn\'t under water; but I don\'t know. I was scared we\'d bust yore laigs; mebby we didn\'t because we pulled you sideways, an\' you raised so much h—l when you felt th\' rope tighten, an\' heard me call you. Just th\'[149] same, I\'m sayin\' we had a close call. An\' we mustn\'t forget it. Come here, now, an\' let me throw this saddle on you. We\'re goin\' to town, an\' yore goin\' to get robbed till you shines. I\'m as stuck-up about you as a gal is over her first beau."

In a few minutes they were on their way to Gunsight, but they did not reach the town without incident. They had ridden to Pine Mountain and Johnny, wishing to see if Squint\'s saddle had been discovered, hid Pepper in a dump of brush and scrub timber well back from the trail and, taking his rifle, crossed the beaten road at a rocky place and worked his way into the brush on the mountain side. When he had climbed about eighty feet he reached a little rock shelf and rested a moment. As he was about to go on he heard hoofbeats down the trail and he flattened himself behind a tuft of grass growing in a crack. Looking down the trail he saw a horseman round into sight from the arroyo leading from East Canyon.

"Smitty," he muttered. "I don\'t think much of him, an\' I reckon he\'ll scare. An\' mebby if he\'s scared near to death a few times he\'ll figger he ain\'t wanted around here, an\' hit th\' trail out. Mebby I\'m wrong, but here\'s where Mr. Smitty gets a jolt he won\'t forget. It will be Number One. Whether or not he gets any more will depend on how he takes this one. I\'m bettin\' he don\'t stalk me for it—here he comes, ridin\' lazy an\' tryin\' to sing. I ought to be able to come awful close at this distance, with a rifle layin\' on a rock rest."

Mr. Smith, of the Bar H, rode at a walk, singing a song, the words of which should never appear in print.[150] He had a message to deliver to the Doc and was in no hurry. His hat, a Mexican sombrero with ultra-fancy band, and a high crown, which appeared to be even higher because of the vertical dents which pushed the top into a peak, was tilted rakishly off-center and looked rather ludicrous to the man on the mountain, who noted that there appeared to be plenty of hat and horse, but very little man. When just across a short stretch of rocky trail there rang out over the rider\'s head a roar such as only black powder can make, and the tilted sombrero flew into the air and struck the ground. The horse and its rider heard the roar at the same instant and each acted as their instincts prompted. The horse shot forward, clearing a dozen feet in the jump, sprang back, wheeling in the air, and bolted for the arroyo it had just left, where it quickly recovered its poise and stopped to search out succulent grass tufts. Mr. Smith\'s instincts seemed to have come to him through generations of acrobatic ancestors, although he was not aware that any of his family tree claimed any such accomplishments, at least since they had forsaken arboreal surroundings. Certainly he never boasted, even in his maddest sprees, of being in any way gifted in acrobatics. Nevertheless, he performed a creditable exhibition when the roar smashed against his ears. As the horse leaped, he grabbed at the pommel, missed it, and in his haste to jerk his head back from the screaming lead he lost his balance. His feet left the stirrups, and then came swiftly upward as he pivoted on the saddle. They swept up past the horse\'s neck, kept on and described a half-circle, the saddle as the center. As they went[151] up Mr. Smith\'s head went down, and as the horse leaped back and whirled, he was jolted into a position rarely seen in horseback riding except in exhibitions. For a moment he stood on his shoulder against the cantle of the saddle and then turned a pretty, if unintentional, back flip onto the ground, landing squarely on his hat. The whole thing happened in a flash and the sound of the shot was still rumbling among the hills when, grabbing his sombrero, he started on a dead run for the horse and the ranch. When he reached the animal he leaped into the saddle without touching the stirrups, and urged a speedy departure, which his spurs obtained.

Johnny rolled over on his back and laughed heartily. Finally he sat up, put the empty shell in his pocket, reloaded the rifle and went up the mountain to hide Squint\'s saddle in a better place, for he now believed such a precaution necessary. It was more than probable that Pine Mountain would be searched as soon as the indignant puncher could lead his friends to the scene of his discomfiture. He found the saddle where he had left it and carried it to a narrow, shallow split in the mountain\'s rocky side and dropped it in, after which dead branches and grass and rocks covered it and hid it securely. Scrambling back to the trail he looked cautiously along it and then dashed across and made his way to his horse, stepping on rock whenever possible. Not long afterward he rode down the Juniper trail and went to the hotel shed, where he led Pepper inside and prepared to groom her. He hardly had begun work when Two-Spot sidled in, and there was wrath in his eyes.

[152]

"What you been doin\' to that hoss?" he demanded, as his gaze swept over her. "She looks like she\'s been rolled in th\' river."

"Mebby she has," replied Johnny, rubbing briskly. "She likes a swim as well as I do—an\' we both had one, which is somethin\' I can recommend to you."

"What did you do with them rifle cartridges of Polecat\'s you was goin\' to give me?" asked Two-Spot, going to work on the other flank.

"I hid \'em," answered Johnny. "Look out she don\'t hand you a stomachful of hoof—she don\'t like strangers."

"Huh!" snorted Two-Spot, "what do I care about strangers? Where\'d you hide \'em?"

"In them sweepin\'s, under th\' manger," replied Johnny. "Wait till after dark."

"What you figger I\'m goin\' to do—show everybody that Two-Spot\'s startin\' an arsenal?" He rubbed for a moment in silence, and then began to chuckle. "Ol\' Chief Smell-Um-Strong had a plumb fine gun—I got a laugh comin\'; you gave th\' best one away."

"I\'m satisfied," grunted Johnny.

"Dave was on th\' prod this noon when I showed up," continued Two-Spot. "What did you say you was swimmin\' in?" he demanded, curiously, examining one of Pepper\'s hocks.

"Water," answered Johnny. "What did he say?"

"Mebby it was," observed Two-Spot. "How\'d you get out?"

"Swum."

"At th\' end of a rope? Why, Dave, he wanted to[153] know where th\' this, that, an\' th\' other thing I was last night. Reckoned, mebby, I\'d got full of berries an\' hibernated. What was you doin\' in th\' SV valley?"

"What did you tell him?" asked Johnny, grinning.

"Told him that I was rustlin\' a passel of cows an\' that they went so fast I had to run to Juniper before I could head \'em off. You must \'a\' had one h—l of a time gettin\' out. Shore Pepper ain\'t hurt?"

"It ain\'t th\' first bath she\'s had—she\'s a good swimmer, \'though for much of it I\'d ruther have a cayuse with a bigger barrel. She won\'t shrink."

"Why in h—l don\'t Dave set out th\' bottle, like he used to?" growled Two-Spot. "There ain\'t no sense in totin\' it by th\' glass to a crowd of blotters. They\'ll hold more liquor than a gopher hole—an\' I\'ve broke my back carryin\' water to drown them fellers out when I was a kid. How long is your rope?"

"Dave\'s a friend of mine, that\'s why," answered Johnny. "My capacity is so limited that ol\' Dailey could clean me out after my fourth drink. Them leather-bellies can drink me into a heap on th\' floor, an\' never know they\'d been drinkin\'."

"Shore," said Two-Spot, chuckling; "yo\'re a teethin\' infant, a reg\'lar suckin\' calf—I\'ve seen you put away a dozen an\' not bat an eye. An\' it\'s bad medicine; look at me. How long\'s that rope?"

"Eighty feet."

"Yo\'re another. There ain\'t a man livin\' can throw such a rope an\' ketch anythin\'. I\'ve seen some good uns, but I\'ve never seen even a sixty-foot rope. Who fastened to you?"

[154]

"Yo\'re loco—plumb loco," said Johnny. "You want to forget them hallucernations—somebody might believe \'em."

"\'Hallerlucinations\'—humph! I\'ll have to remember that an\' throw it at Dave. Where was you today?"

"Mindin\' my own business," retorted Johnny. "What ever put you hangin\' \'round a saloon, emptyin\' boxes?"

"Whiskey," said Two-Spot "I was smart, like you, an\' liked to hold up my end, drink for drink. Here\'s some more of that water you swum in—looks familiar."

"I\'m goin\' to drag you out to a ranch some of these days," threatened Johnny, "an\' give you a job—an\' whale th\' skin from yore bones th\' first time I see you takin\' a drink. You got brains an\' that ranch needs \'em."

"You can\'t learn an old dog new tricks," grunted Two-Spot, and then burst out laughing; "but you can change a wolf inter a skunk if you goes about it right. He! He! He!" In a few minutes he threw down the brush and went to the door. "Seein\' as how yo\'re playin\' fresh-water clam, do it yoreself!" he snorted and, dodging the other brush, he scurried around to Dave\'s.

Down on the Bar H, Smitty\'s arrival made a ripple of excitement. Big Tom was mending a shirt and cursing the clumsiness of his fingers and the sharpness of the needle, when there came the clatter of hoofs outside and he looked up to see Smitty leap from the saddle and jump through the doorway, holding a much-abused[155] Mexican sombrero out at arm\'s length. It was trampled and soiled and there was a fuzzy-edged rip an inch long in the brim where a 550-grain bullet had ploughed before passing through. Eight years before Smitty had paid twenty-five dollars for the hat, perhaps entirely too much, and next to his saddle it was his most prized possession. It had seen hard service, but he fondly regarded it as being as good as new.

"Lookit my hat!" he cried, jabbing it under the foreman\'s nose, which caused the needle to find the finger again.

"D—n th\' hat!" growled Big Tom. "Take it away from my nose!"

"Lookit it!" insisted Smitty. "Some coyote shot at me from up on Pine Mountain an\' plumb ruined it! He came so close I could feel th\' slug—cuss it, I smelled it! It fair grazed by nose. Lookit it!"

Big Tom threw the shirt away and took the hat, turning it over in his hands. "I\'d say it was close—plumb close," he admitted. "How far off was he?"

"Right over my head—couple dozen feet," answered Smitty. "Here! Don\'t poke yore blasted finger in it like that! Cuss it, it\'s bad enough now! That\'s more like it. I could feel th\' concussion an\' smell th\' smoke. I was ridin\' along at a walk, when whango! It near stunned me, it was so close. An\' lookit what he done to that hat! There ain\'t another hat like that on th\' whole range!"

"Yo\'re right, they throw \'em away long before that," retorted Big Tom, an idea coming into his head. "Did you pick up his trail?"

[156]

"How could I?" ............