In Gunsight, Dailey rubbed his eyes and cursed the slowness of his breakfast fire, and then padded in his stocking feet to the window and looked out in time to see a black horse go past with a reach and swinging smoothness which brought an appreciative glow into his blinking eyes. The rider sat his saddle with a supple grace and erectness which harmonized with the beautiful leg action of his mount.

"He ain\'t stoppin\'," muttered Dailey. "Must \'a\' been up to Juniper. I\'m sayin\' again that if that pack of coyotes lets him start ahead of \'em out of rifle range, there ain\'t nobody from down here as will ever get close enough to see him again. There\'s mebby purtier things on earth than a hoss like that, but I\'m admittin\' I never saw \'em. Cuss that fire—it\'s smokin\' again!"

The Doc heard the rhythmic beat pass his shack, muttered drowsily, and turned over to go to sleep again. "Hope it\'s that Smitty, blast him!" and his snores grew steadily louder.

Leaving the Double X quite some time before daylight. Pepper had been sent over the upper trail, which joined the Juniper trail north of town. Now she spurned the Highbank-Gunsight road beneath her flying hoofs with an eagerness and power that belittled the twenty-five miles she already had put behind her.

[232]

Johnny stroked the satin skin under which the powerful muscles of her sloping shoulders rippled and bunched, and pride surged through him.

"I used to think Hoppy\'s Red Eagle, an\' Red\'s Ginger was th\' real thing in hossflesh," he told her, "but they was cows compared to you, Pepper Girl. There ain\'t nothin\' on four laigs has any right to look at you—an\' some few on two laigs, too." Swinging around the hill where Green Valley met the trail he patted her again. "There they are, little hoss, ridin\' off to comb th\' range. See that tied-in pinto Slim\'s a-ridin\'? Show it what runnin\' is—I want to talk to him."

Slim glanced around, drew rein and had a brief argument with the pinto, which did not like Slim, or his habit of stopping suddenly. "Changed yore mind?" he asked, smiling.

"In quite some ways," replied Johnny, forthwith explaining the situation in terse sentences. Slim\'s mouth opened and forgot to close until his groping mind at last mastered what his ears fed to it, when the mouth opened wider and gave vent to loud, sustaining laughter. Finally subsiding, he demanded the story in detail, but Johnny wheeled around.

"I\'m warnin\' you, not amusin\' you, you human rope," retorted Johnny. "If Wolf comes back he\'ll mebby come a-shootin\'—pass th\' word along."

Slim shoved his hat well back on his head and jammed his gloved hands against his sides. "Th\' h—l he will!" he rejoined. "Let him, then. He ain\'t th\' only man out here as packs a gun; I mebby got one, myself.[233] Havin\' been kindly warned, now I\'m all ready to be amused. Tell it slow. If you can\'t talk it, sing it. Wait! Here comes Cimarron."

The round-up boss rode up wearing a grin, in sympathy with Slim\'s far-reaching guffaws. "What\'s th\' scandal?" he demanded.

"Th\' cussedest thing you ever heard," laughed Slim, putting his hand on Pepper\'s bridle. "Nelson is in a hurry to go somewhere, but he\'s got to give us all of it now that he\'s whetted my appetite with th\' mustard."

"I want to get to town an\' give Wolf his chance," objected Johnny.

"If he\'s achin\' to smoke up he\'ll come here, won\'t he?" demanded Slim. "This is th\' place to wait for him—right here."

"All of which I admits is interestin\'," said Cimarron; "but what is it all about?"

"Slow now," prompted Slim. He looked around. "Would you listen to that dickey bird up on th\' hill?" he asked.

The dickey bird was Larry Hallock, whose voice barely reached them. "What do you reckon yo\'re doin\'?" demanded Larry, but in far different language. "Gettin\' married?" Further inquiries not receiving the attention he felt they were entitled to, he suspected trouble and made haste to get where he could hear about it. "Hello, Nelson!" he smiled as he joined them. "Lookin\' for Two-Spot?"

"No; where is he?" demanded Johnny.

"I reckon he\'s downin\' liquor in Dave\'s about now," answered Cimarron. "He\'s been raisin\' th\' devil for[234] a drink which he didn\'t get. Slim, th\' fool, owns up that he gave him a dollar last night—an\' when we woke up this mornin\' our tally man had disappeared. But that ain\'t tellin\' me what Slim was hee-hawin\' about, or about Wolf."

"Slow, an\' deliberate, with everythin\' in," chuckled Slim. "Go ahead."

Johnny complied, to their hilarious enjoyment, and when the tale was ended, Slim wiped his eyes, pointed out over the range, and said: "You can stay right here an\' do somethin\' worth while. Not one man in a thousand would come back with that pinned on his shirt tail—an\' I\'m sayin\' Wolf ain\'t that man. He blames th\' Double X—an\' there\'s only twelve of us. He\'s shore about four bein\' in town that night, but I ain\'t lettin\' my modesty stop me from sayin\' that, barrin\' Cimarron here, he knows that th\' four who was there are th\' best six-gun men on our ranch; an\' that we ain\'t takin\' lessons from nobody when it comes to throwin\' lead. He might get one of us, mebby two, an\' I\'ll stretch h—l out of that word probability an\' say he might get three; but he won\'t get us all, an\' he knows it. But worse than shootin\' it out is what he\'ll have to face; an\' he hates ridicule worse than a rattler hates a king snake. You ain\'t goin\' to set in Dave\'s, takin\' it easy, while we\'re sweatin\' out here—I got a nice little place where you\'ll fit in an\' stop th\' gaps that Larry is allus leavin\' open."

"Gaps!" snorted Larry, indignantly. "Trouble is, you drive \'em so hard they gets stubborn an\' go on th\' prod. Anybody\'d think you never saw a cow before,[235] th\' way you acts. You ought to know you can\'t crowd \'em too hard."

Cimarron cogitated. "If yo\'re aimin\' to meet with Wolf, Nelson," he said, judicially, "I reckon you\'d do better to stay here. He ain\'t got no reason to want anybody in town—nobody there has done anythin\' to him. An\' he knows none of us boys hang out there, except once in a while. What\'s more, he ain\'t likely to want to face Gunsight till he\'s squared up for his kidnappin\'. As to him comin\' back, I ain\'t nowise shore he won\'t. Some fellers are so full of th\' idea of revenge that everythin\' else plays second fiddle when they go on th\' prod. They go fair mad an\' don\'t care about nothin\' else. Wolf\'s bad—bad as a mad rattler. I figger this is th\' place for you. I\'m sayin\' this, too: If Slim had worked that razzle on him I wouldn\'t take a hand; but, knowin\' Slim didn\'t, if that venomous reptile comes tearin\' around here with his guns cocked, I\'ll just nat\'rally puncture him at long range with my Remington. I ain\'t sympathizin\' with no man that shoots till he knows why he\'s doin\' it."

"Stay here till this afternoon, anyhow," said Slim. "We\'ll be needin\' our tally man before night, an\' you can ride to town, look around, an\' bring Two-Spot back with you. I\'m sayin\' Wolf won\'t come back—I\'m cussed shore I wouldn\'t in his place."

"Shore," endorsed Larry. "Turn yore cayuse loose an\' get one from Arch—take that bay gelding—he\'s near human at this kind of work. Anyhow, he\'s got more sense than Slim."

[236] Dawn in Highbank found a sobered Wolf, unarmed, penniless, and hectic, with a steadily growing rage. He went to place after place in search of a horse, finally borrowing one from a saloon-keeper who knew the foreman of the Bar H. Promising to use the animal only as far as the ranch, and to send it back behind the freight wagon, he threw the saddle on it and then rode around in search of a gun. Knowing about the joke, and feeling the man\'s murderous rage, no one would lend him a weapon. He had about decided to leave without one when he chanced to pass the small horse corral and shed behind Pete Wiggins\' hotel, and espied a sodden figure asleep against the palings. Stealing the puncher\'s gun he rode away and in a few minutes was cursing the ford, of which a few yards was swimming water. Emerging on the other bank he pushed up the bluff trail at a walk and then, reaching level ground, set off for his ranch at a pace which might have killed a poorer horse.

As he rode, his mind became clearer and clearer, and he began to unravel the tangled skein of his abduction. Like his kind who, accustomed to hours of solitude, often talked their thoughts, he did his thinking aloud.

"Double X, says Buffalo. Mebby. First we\'ll accuse everybody else in town. Dave?" he laughed sneeringly at the thought. "Dailey? Fanning? Jerry? George? Why them? They ain\'t th\' kind to stack up ag\'in\' such a risk for th\' fun of it; an\' they ain\'t none of \'em got any other reason. Dailey an\' Fanning was in Dave\'s all evenin\'—they never left th\' table. Jerry was snoring in his shop when I went around th\' buildin\'s,[237] an\' he wouldn\'t dare try to kidnap a blind pup. George is another without nerve, an\' he was snorin\' worse than Jerry. Nelson? He was with th\' others. Mebby he did it, but I\'m thinkin\' there was more\'n one man mixed up in that. If my senses hadn\'t been knocked out of me I\'d know more about it. We\'ll put him aside as a possibility.

"Them Double X coyotes ain\'t lovin\' me, \'specially since I\'ve been ridin\' sign along their line. There was four of \'em, an\' they was all primed for a good time; an\' from what I heard \'em say about th\' Doc an\' Squint an\' me an\' th\' rest of our outfit, they wasn\'t needin\' much urgin\' to tackle a job like that. But they was in Dave\'s too; still, they left before I did.

"That leaves my own gang of practical jokers. They knowed that I was in town, but they didn\'t know I was goin\' to ride home that night because I didn\'t know it myself. They might \'a\' done it, but I\'ll find that out cussed quick when I get back.

"Who else was there? Dailey, Fanning, Jerry, Dave, Nelson—Two-Spot! He wasn\'t in sight at all. Dave was raisin\' th\' roof about him not bein\' around. But h—l! Twenty Two-Spots wouldn\'t \'a\' tackled a play like that; an\' he couldn\'t sling a rope, nor carry a man as heavy as me that distance. Slim can rope—he\'s the best down here. I don\'t remember much about it till I was put down near th\' waggin; but I\'m shore that th\' man that throwed that rope was an expert.

"Two-Spot? I don\'t see how he could fit in—cuss him! I got it! Somebody must \'a\' seen me movin\' \'round or else nobody would \'a\' knowed I was in town.[238] None of them fellers could \'a\' seen me; but Two-Spot could have. Whoever did that job had to be told I was there; an\' I\'m sayin\' they was told. That bum hates me; he\'ll never forget my kickin\' him off\'n th\' tie-rail an\' makin\' him dance th\' tenderfoot\'s fandango. I\'m goin\' to see Two-Spot after I stop at th\' ranch—an\' if he don\'t talk fast and straight, he\'ll dance to h—l this time!"

It was not yet noon when Wolf swept up to his bunkhouse and rode in through the door, leaning forward in the saddle to clear the rafters, his gun freezing Big Tom and Dick Carson as stiff as statues.

"Don\'t you move till I says so!" he snarled. "Who was in town th\' night Buffalo stopped there on his way home? Think quick; an\' talk straight!"

"What are you doin\'? Goin\' loco?" demanded the foreman. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the look on his puncher\'s face.

"I\'m askin\' th\' questions!" snapped Wolf, his rage climbing anew. "You answer \'em, an\' pronto! Who was there that night?"

"Don\'t know; but none of our boys was."

"Nobody left here at all that night?" demanded Wolf.

"Not one."

"How do you know? That was near a week ago. How do you know they was all here?"

"That was th\' first night you went on Nelson\'s trail," answered the foreman somewhat angrily. "I told them to stay home, an\' give you plenty of room. They did it."

[239]

"I reckon they was glad to do it," sneered Wolf. "Coyotes don\'t go cougar hunting less\'n th\' pack is big."

"They might as well stay home as go on a drunk in Highbank," retorted Big Tom, coldly.

For a moment Wolf was balanced on a narrow edge, but controlled himself because of genuine liking for his foreman. "Don\'t you ever come that close again," he said, almost in a whisper. "Do you know why I went to Highbank? You ought to, for I reckon everybody does by this time," he grated.

"I\'m listenin\' to you," answered Big Tom. "I don\'t know why you went."

Wolf dismounted, drove the horse out of the house, and paced up and down the long room in a frenzy of energy.

"I was roped off my cayuse ridin\' home that night. I must \'a\' fell on my head, for I don\'t know nothin\' about it till I got to town. When I came to my senses I was bound, blindfolded, an\' gagged, an\' my head was spinnin\' an\' near bustin\' with pain. I was dumped into Buffalo\'s wagon, pushed in among a load of hides, an\' staked out so I couldn\'t move. All that day I lay there under that tarp, joltin\' over that long trail, near faintin\' with th\' pain of th\' lashin\'s an\' th\' gag, swelterin\' in th\' heat an\' stink, sick with th\' pain in my head, parched an\' burnin\' with thirst, ragin\' with my thoughts, mile after mile. There was times I must \'a\' lost consciousness; but I can remember a-plenty!

"Down in Highbank I was hauled out by a gang of cacklin\' sage hens who thought it was a joke. If I\'d[240] had a gun an\' could \'a\' used it, I\'d \'a\' showed \'em what kind of a joke it was!" He flew into a burst of rage which awed his companions, and he nearly wrecked the room before he subsided, his words one quivering stream of profanity. "An\' what have I got to face?" he shouted. "What have I got to live down? I\'ll be th\' laughin\' stock of this whole country till I die, an\' after! But I can show \'em that it costs somethin\' to make a fool of Wolf Forbes; an\' I will, if I dies for it! I want a six-gun, an\' a rifle, an\' yore pet hoss. I\'m ridin\' to town to see th\' one man who can tell me where to start, an\' I\'m ridin\' alone."

"Think it was Nelson?" asked Carson.

"Mebby; but I\'m not sayin\' till I know," snapped Wolf, pacing again. "I\'m askin\' you: Do you figger ropin\' an\' kidnappin\' Wolf Forbes was any one-man job? Is there any man in this country that would tackle that job, alone, for th\' fun of it? Yo\'re right. I says not, too. An\' if he didn\'t do it for th\' fun of it, would he \'a\' dared tackle it, at all? What I mean is, if he did it to get rid of me, wouldn\'t he \'a\' killed me from that ambush. I\............