/> interest. Sometimes, remembering the desperate character of the

outlaws, their fierce distrust of any intruder, the wildness of the

country, Buck Johnson and his foreman inclined to the belief that the

stranger had undertaken a task beyond the powers of any one man.

Again, remembering the stranger's cool grey eye, the poise of his

demeanour, the quickness of his movements, and the two guns with tied

holsters to permit of easy withdrawal, they were almost persuaded that

he might win.



"He's one of those long-chance fellows," surmised Jed. "He likes

excitement. I see that by the way he takes up with my knife play.

He'd rather leave his hide on the fence than stay in the corral."



"Well, he's all right," replied Senor Buck Johnson, "and if he ever

gets back, which same I'm some doubtful of, his dinero'll be here for

him."



In pursuance of this he rode in to Willets, where shortly the overland

train brought him from Tucson the five thousand dollars in double

eagles.



In the meantime the regular life of the ranch went on. Each morning

Sang, the Chinese cook, rang the great bell, summoning the men. They

ate, and then caught up the saddle horses for the day, turning those

not wanted from the corral into the pasture. Shortly they jingled away

in different directions, two by two, on the slow Spanish trot of the

cow-puncher. All day long thus they would ride, without food or water

for man or beast, looking the range, identifying the stock, branding

the young calves, examining generally into the state of affairs, gazing

always with grave eyes on the magnificent, flaming, changing,

beautiful, dreadful desert of the Arizona plains. At evening when the

coloured atmosphere, catching the last glow, threw across the

Chiricahuas its veil of mystery, they jingled in again, two by two,

untired, unhasting, the glory of the desert in their deep-set, steady

eyes.



And all the day long, while they were absent, the cattle, too, made

their pilgrimage, straggling in singly, in pairs, in bunches, in long

files, leisurely, ruminantly, without haste. There, at the long

troughs filled by the windmill of the blindfolded pump mule, they

drank, then filed away again into the mists of the desert. And Senor

Buck Johnson, or his foreman, Parker, examined them for their

condition, noting the increase, remarking the strays from another

range. Later, perhaps, they, too, rode abroad. The same thing

happened at nine other ranches from five to ten miles apart, where

dwelt other fierce, silent men all under the authority of Buck Johnson.



And when night fell, and the topaz and violet and saffron and amethyst

and mauve and lilac had faded suddenly from the Chiricahuas, like a

veil that has been rent, and the ramparts had become slate-grey and

then black--the soft-breathed night wandered here and there over the

desert, and the land fell under an enchantment even stranger than the

day's.



So the days went by, wonderful, fashioning the ways and the characters

of men. Seven passed. Buck Johnson and his foreman began to look for

the stranger. Eight, they began to speculate. Nine, they doubted. On

the tenth they gave him up--and he came.



They knew him first by the soft lowing of cattle. Jed Parker, dazzled

by the lamp, peered out from the door, and made him out dimly turning

the animals into the corral. A moment later his pony's hoofs impacted

softly on the baked earth, he dropped from the saddle and entered the

room.



"I'm late," said he briefly, glancing at the clock, which indicated

ten; "but I'm here."



His manner was quick and sharp, almost breathless, as though he had

been running.



"Your cattle are in the corral: all of them. Have you the money?"



"I have the money here," replied Buck Johnson, laying his hand against

a drawer, "and it's ready for you when you've earned it. I don't care

so much for the cattle. What I wanted is the man who stole them. Did

you bring him?"



"Yes, I brought him," said the stranger. "Let's see that money."



Buck Johnson threw open the drawer, and drew from it the heavy canvas

sack.



"It's here. Now bring in your prisoner."



The two-gun man seemed suddenly to loom large in the doorway. The

muzzles of his revolvers covered the two before him. His speech came

short and sharp.



"I told you I'd bring back the cows and the one who rustled them," he

snapped. "I've never lied to a man yet. Your stock is in the corral.

I'll trouble you for that five thousand. I'm the man who stole your

cattle!"