ting with Fitzpatrick. But this
time the waiting interval was not wasted. Picketing the three horses,
and arming themselves with a pair of the short-barrelled rifles, the
advance guard of two made a careful study of the ground, pushing the
reconnaissance down to the mouth of the dry valley, and a little way
along the main river trail in both directions.

"Right here," said Ballard, indicating a point on the river trail just
below the intersecting valley mouth, "is where you will be posted with
the Maxim. If you take this boulder for a shield, you can command the
gulch and the upper trail for a hundred yards or more, and still be out
of range of their Winchesters. They'll probably shoot at you, but you
won't mind that, with six or eight feet of granite for a breastwork,
will you, Jerry?"

"Well, I should say not! Just you watch me burn 'em up when you give the
word, Mr. Ballard. I believe I could hold a hundred of 'em from this
rock."

"That is exactly what I want you to do--to hold them. It would be
cold-blooded murder to turn the Maxim loose on them from this short
range unless they force you to it. Don't forget that, Jerry."

"I sha'n't," promised the collegian; and after some further study of the
topographies, they went back to the horses.

Thereupon ensued a tedious wait of an hour or more, with no sight or
sound of the expected waggon, and with anxiety growing like a juggler's
rose during the slowly passing minutes. Anyone of a dozen things might
have happened to delay Fitzpatrick, or even to make his errand a
fruitless one. The construction track was rough, and the hurrying engine
might have jumped the rails. The rustlers might have got wind of the gun
dash and ditched the locomotive. Failing that, some of their round-up
men might have stumbled upon the contractor and halted and overpowered
him. Ballard and Blacklock listened anxiously for the drumming of
wheels. But when the silence was broken it was not by waggon noises; the
sound was in the air--a distant lowing of a herd in motion, and the
shuffling murmur of many hoofs. The inference was plain.

"By Jove! do you hear that, Jerry?" Ballard demanded. "The beggars are
coming down-valley with the cattle, _and they're ahead of Fitzpatrick_!"

That was not strictly true. While the engineer was adding a hasty
command to mount, Fitzpatrick's waggon came bouncing up the dry arroyo,
with the snorting team in a lather of sweat.

"Sharp work, Mr. Ballard!" gaspe