ant foliage of
the trees into the sky--overcast now with a dim haze, forerunner of the
storm gathering above the Costejo peaks. Thousands of feet in the air a
buzzard, merely a black speck, without motion of wings, wheeled in
great, lazy, ever-widening circles.

As the sun dropped into the cloud bank in the west a band of mares and
colts came from that direction and rounded a spur of Sentinel Mountain.
At their heads was the most beautiful horse ever seen on the Kiowa
range.

In color a coppery, almost golden, chestnut sorrel; flaxen mane and
tail, verging on creamy white; short-coupled in the back and with
withers that marked the runner; belly smooth and round; legs trim and
neat as an antelope's and muscled like a panther's; head small, carried
proudly erect and eyes full and wonderfully clear and brown.

"Th' filly!" the Ramblin' Kid breathed, "with a bunch of Tony Malush's
Anchor Bar mares and colts!"

Captain Jack saw the range horses and lifted his head.

"Psst!" the Ramblin' Kid hissed and the neigh was stopped.

The rangers moved toward the east and over the crest of a ridge a
quarter of a mile away. On the flat beyond the rise they stopped, the
colts immediately teasing the mares to suck. The filly withdrew a short
distance from the herd and stood alert and watchful.

For half an hour the Ramblin' Kid studied the Gold Dust maverick.

He looked at the clouds climbing higher and higher in the west, then
long and thoughtfully at Captain Jack.

"Let's get her, Boy!" he murmured; "let's go an' get her!"

His mind made up, the Ramblin' Kid slipped the bridle again on Captain
Jack, removed the saddle and with the blanket wiped the sweat from the
broncho's back, smoothed the blanket, reset the saddle, carefully
tightened front and rear cinches and mounting the little stallion guided
him slowly down the ravine in the direction of the horses on the flat. A
hundred yards away the mares and colts, alarmed by the sudden
half-whinny, half-snort, from the filly, discovered the approaching
horse and rider.

Instantly the wild horses crowded closely together and galloped toward
the Una de Gata. Captain Jack leaped into a run, rushing them. The
maverick wheeled quickly and dashed away to the south alone.

"Her pet trick!" the Ramblin' Kid muttered as he headed Captain Jack
after the nimble creature. "She absodamnedlutely will not bunch--seems
to know a crowd means a corral, a rope and at last a rider on her
shapel