lness made him nervous; even the sound of Babe's back rubbing against
the door when he shifted his position was company. Smith's uneasiness was
unlike him, and he wondered at it, while unable to conquer it. It must
have been nearly midnight when, staring into the darkness with sleepless
eyes, he felt, rather than heard, something move outside. It came from the
rear, and Babe was at the door for only a moment before he had struck a
match on a log to light a cigarette. The sound was so slight that only a
trained ear like Smith's would have detected it.

It had sounded like the scraping of the leg of an overall against a
sage-brush, and yet it was so trifling, so indistinct, that a field mouse
might have made it. But somehow Smith knew, he was sure, that something
human had caused it; and as he listened for a recurrence of the sound, the
conviction grew upon him that there was movement and life outside. He was
convinced that something was going to happen.

His judgment told him that the prowlers were more likely to be enemies
than friends--he was in the enemies' country. But, on the other hand,
there was always the chance that unexpected help had arrived. Smith still
believed in his luck. The grub-liners might come to his rescue, or "the
boys," who had been waiting at the rendezvous, might have learned in some
unexpected way what had befallen him. Even if they were his enemies, they
would first be obliged to overpower Babe, and, he told himself, in the
"ruckus" he might somehow escape.

But even as he argued the question pro and con, unable to decide whether
or not to warn Babe, a stifled exclamation and the thud of a heavy body
against the door told him that it had been answered for him. Wide-eyed,
breathless, his nerves at a tension, his heart pounding in his breast, he
interpreted the sounds which followed as correctly as if he had been an
eye-witness to the scene.

He could hear Babe's heels strike the ground as he kicked and threshed,
and the inarticulate epithets told Smith that his guard was gagged. He
knew, too, that the attack was made by more than two men, for Babe was a
young Hercules in strength.

Were they friends or foes? Were they Bar C cowpunchers come to take the
law into their own hands, or were they his hoped-for rescuers? The
suspense sent the perspiration out in beads on Smith's forehead, and he
wiped his moist face with his shirt-sleeve. Then he heard the shoulders
against the door, the heavy brea