' then rope an'
saddle a fresh hoss. There is shore goin' to be some doin's to-night."

CHAPTER IX

THE MAN IN THE MASK

As Bud Larkin jogged along on Pinte, apparently one of the group of men
with whom he was riding, he wondered mechanically why his captors insisted
on traveling ten miles to a tree sufficiently stout to bear his weight.

"I should think they'd stand me up and do the business with a bullet," he
thought.

But a moment's reflection furnished the answer to this query. These men
were cattle-rustlers and horse-thieves, than which no more hazardous
existence ever was since the gentle days of West Indian piracy, and to
them merely a single pistol shot might mean betrayal of their whereabouts,
capture and death.

The character of the country through which they rode gave sufficient
evidence of their care in all details, for it was a rough, wild,
uninhabitable section that boasted, on its craggy heights and rough
coulees, barely enough vegetation to support a wild mustang.

It was three o'clock of the afternoon and behind them the party could
still see the place where they had camped. Joe Parker, fearful of stirring
about much until the thoughts of range-riders were turning homeward like
their ponies' steps, had delayed the departure beyond the hour first
intended.

The rustlers really did not want to dispose of Larkin. Being plainsmen,
their acute sense of justice told them that this man was absolutely
guiltless of any crime deserving of death. Untoward circumstances had
forced him into their hands, and, like the boy with the fly-paper, they
were unable to get rid of him peaceably. Their abuse of his insane folly
was colorful and vivid.

But Larkin had reasons for his stubborn attitude. With the arrogance of
youth and the inexperience of real danger, he had resolved that as soon as
his sheep should be safely up the range he would devote some time, money,
and effort to the running down of these rustlers. Some of their faces were
unforgetably stamped on his memory now, and he had no doubt that he could
be of great service to Wyoming Territory, which was just at this time
petitioning for the dignity of Statehood.

He had known the losses and insolence of rustlers on his own sheep ranch
in Montana, and, like every sympathizer with justice and order, had sworn
to himself many times that all of them should be run to earth.

The longer Bud remained with the rustlers the more nervous some of them
b