g with you."

"All right; if it's the thing you want to do," Ballard yielded. "Of
course, I shall be delighted to have you along." And when Fitzpatrick
came with two horses he sent him back to the corral for a third.

The preparations for the night ride were soon made, and it was not until
Ballard and Bigelow were making ready to mount at the door of the
commissary that Fitzpatrick reappeared with the guide, a grave-faced lad
who looked as if he might be years older than any guess his diminutive
stature warranted. Ballard's glance was an eye-sweep of shrewd
appraisal.

"You're not much bigger than a pint of cider, Dickie boy," he commented.
"Why don't you take a start and grow some?"

"I'm layin' off to; when I get time. Pap allows I got to'r he won't own
to me," said the boy soberly.

"Who is your father?" The query was a mere fill-in, bridging the
momentary pause while Ballard was inspecting the saddle cinchings of the
horse he was to ride; and evidently the boy so regarded it.

"He's a man," he answered briefly, adding nothing to the supposable
fact.

Bigelow was up, and Ballard was putting a leg over his wiry little mount
when Fitzpatrick emerged from the dimly lighted interior of the
commissary bearing arms--a pair of short-barrelled repeating rifles in
saddle-holsters.

"Better be slinging these under the stirrup-leathers--you and your
friend, Mr. Ballard," he suggested. "All sorts of things are liable to
get up in the tall hills when a man hasn't got a gun."

This was so patently said for the benefit of the little circle of
onlooking workmen that Ballard bent to the saddle-horn while Fitzpatrick
was buckling the rifle-holster in place.

"What is it, Bourke?" he asked quietly.

"More of the same," returned the contractor, matching the low tone of
the inquiry. "Craigmiles has got his spies in every camp, and you're
probably spotted, same as old man Macpherson used to be when he rode the
work. If that cussed Mexican foreman does be getting wind of this, and
shy a guess at why you're heading for Jack's Cabin and the railroad in
the dead o' night----"

Ballard's exclamation was impatient.

"This thing has got on your digestion, Bourke," he said, rallying the
big contractor. "Up at the Elbow Canyon camp it's a hoodoo bogey, and
down here it's the Craigmiles cow-boys. Keep your shirt on, and we'll
stop it--stop it short." Then, lowering his voice again: "Is the boy
trustworthy?"

Fitzpatrick's shrug w