d fire of his frontiersman's nature he had turned
to wiping out the third uncertainty of an uncertain business. He found
it a task of some magnitude.

For Senor Buck Johnson lived just north of that terra incognita filled
with the mystery of a double chance of death from man or the flaming
desert known as the Mexican border. There, by natural gravitation,
gathered all the desperate characters of three States and two
republics. He who rode into it took good care that no one should ride
behind him, lived warily, slept light, and breathed deep when once he
had again sighted the familiar peaks of Cochise's Stronghold. No one
professed knowledge of those who dwelt therein. They moved, mysterious
as the desert illusions that compassed them about. As you rode, the
ranges of mountains visibly changed form, the monstrous, snaky,
sea-like growths of the cactus clutched at your stirrup, mock lakes
sparkled and dissolved in the middle distance, the sun beat hot and
merciless, the powdered dry alkali beat hotly and mercilessly back--and
strange, grim men, swarthy, bearded, heavily armed, with red-rimmed
unshifting eyes, rode silently out of the mists of illusion to look on
you steadily, and then to ride silently back into the desert haze.
They might be only the herders of the gaunt cattle, or again they might
belong to the Lost Legion that peopled the country. All you could know
was that of the men who entered in, but few returned.

Directly north of this unknown land you encountered parallel fences
running across the country. They enclosed nothing, but offered a check
to the cattle drifting toward the clutch of the renegades, and an
obstacle to swift, dashing forays.

Of cattle-rustling there are various forms. The boldest consists quite
simply of running off a bunch of stock, hustling it over the Mexican
line, and there selling it to some of the big Sonora ranch owners.
Generally this sort means war. Also are there subtler means, grading
in skill from the re-branding through a wet blanket, through the crafty
refashioning of a brand to the various methods of separating the cow
from her unbranded calf. In the course of his task Senor Buck Johnson
would have to do with them all, but at present he existed in a state of
warfare, fighting an enemy who stole as the Indians used to steal.

Already he had fought two pitched battles and had won them both. His
cattle increased, and he became rich. Nevertheless he knew that
c