aid snortingly. "You'd think they was talkin'
about a locoed steer that just had to be roped an' drug, or shot an'
hauled. Bring him in an' get the money!"

There was genuine indignation in his tone as he repeated the offensive
sentence.

"Well, it can't be me," he said facetiously, aloud. "My name's
Rathburn--a right good name." His eyes clouded. "A right good name
till they began to tamper with it," he muttered with a frown as he lit
a cigarette he had built while perusing the placard.

He took the stub of a lead pencil from the pocket of his shirt. For
some moments he reflected, staring at the sign on the tree trunk. Then
he laboriously printed on its lower edge:

Five thousand dollars more from the State of Arizona if you can get
it.

Rathburn surveyed his work with a grin, replacing the pencil in his
shirt pocket. Then he stepped back and drew his gun. He seemed on the
point of sending a half dozen bullets through the paper when he
suddenly shook his head, glanced hurriedly about him, and shoved the
weapon back into its sheath.

He walked quickly to his horse, swung into the saddle, and started
down the trail on the western side of the ridge.

Below him he saw a far-flung vista of rounded, yellow hills, spotted
with the green of small pines and firs. The ground was hard, dry, and
gravelly. There were boulders a-plenty, and long, sharp-edged
outcroppings of hard rock of a reddish hue. There was no sign of
habitation to be glimpsed from the trail leading down from the high
ridge which he had crossed. He continually looked about him with the
interested air of a man who is venturing into a new locality with
which he is not familiar.

"Dry Lake!" he exclaimed, while his horse pricked up its ears at the
familiar voice. "Good name for it, if it's anywhere in _this_ country.
Hoss, I don't know when we're goin' to drink again. I didn't figure on
hittin' a desert up here."

He rode on at a brisk jog, down and down the winding trail. Then it
led across a number of the round, low hills, ever westward.

As the afternoon wore on, more green brightened the landscape and
patches of grass appeared. Then they came upon a small stream
trickling down from the higher slopes to northward where horse and
rider drank their fill and rested in a quiet, secluded meadow off the
trail.

The man's face was a study as he lay back upon the grass in the cool
shade of a clump of pines. Whimsical and wistful, it was occasionally
lit