woman's"
money. She might have made trouble when she found that he meant to go or
had gone with Dora.

"You can't tell about women," Smith said to himself. "They're like ducks:
no two fly alike."

He felt secure, yet from force of habit his hand frequently sought his
cartridge-belt, his rifle in its scabbard, his six-shooter in the holster
under his arm. And while he serenely hummed the songs of the dance-halls
and round-up camps, two silent figures, so close that they heard the
clacking of the cattle's split hoofs, Tubbs's vacuous oaths, Smith's
contented voice, were following with the business-like persistency of the
law.

The four mounted men rode all night, speaking seldom, each thinking his
own thoughts, dreaming his own dreams. Not until the faintest light grayed
the east did the pursuers fall behind.

"We're not more'n a mile to water now"--Smith had made sure of his country
this time--"and we'll hold the cattle in the brush and take turns
watchin'."

"It's a go with me," answered Tubbs, yawning until his jaws cracked. "I'm
asleep now."

Ralston and Babe knew that Smith would camp for several hours in the
creek-bottom, so they dropped into a gulch and waited.

"They'll picket their horses first, then one of them will keep watch while
the other sleeps. Very likely Tubbs will be the first guard, and, unless
I'm mistaken, Tubbs will be dead to the world in fifteen minutes--though,
maybe, he's too scared to sleep." Ralston's surmise proved to be correct
in every particular.

After they had picketed their horses, Smith told Tubbs to keep watch for a
couple of hours, while he slept.

"Couldn't we jest switch that programme around?" inquired Tubbs
plaintively. "I can't hardly keep my eyes open."

"Do as I tell you," Smith returned sharply.

Tubbs eyed him with envy as he spread down his own and Tubbs's
saddle-blankets.

"I ain't what you'd call 'crazy with the heat.'" Tubbs shivered. "Couldn't
I crawl under one of them blankets with you?"

"You bet you can't. I'd jest as lief sleep with a bull-snake as a man,"
snorted Smith in disgust, and, pulling the blankets about his ears, was
lost in oblivion.

"I kin look back upon times when I've enj'yed myself more," muttered Tubbs
disconsolately, as he paced to and fro, or at intervals climbed wearily
out of the creek-bottom to look and listen.

Ralston and Babe had concealed themselves behind a cut-bank which in the
rainy season was a tributary of the cre