ble, it
seemed to Bud that his footsteps must wake everybody in the house.

The man went out of the dining-room into the mess-room of the cowboys,
closing the door behind him softly, and after that what occurred was out
of the prisoner's ken.

After a while, however, Bud's ears caught the faintest breath of a hiss at
the window, and he rolled softly out of bed on to the floor in his
stocking feet. Sims was there and another man with him, and both were
prying at the bars of the window with instruments muffled in cloth.

"Did you get him?" asked Bud.

"Shore! He won't wake up for a week, that feller," answered Sims
placidly.

For a quarter of an hour the two worked at the clumsy bars, assisted by
Bud from the inside. At the end of that time two of them came loose at the
lower ends and were bent upward. Then the combined efforts of the three
men were centered on the third bar, which gave way in a few minutes.

Handing his boots out first, Larkin crawled headforemost out of the window
and put his arms around the shoulders of his rescuers, resting most of
his weight upon their bent backs. Then they walked slowly away from the
house and Bud's feet and legs came out noiselessly. Still in the shadow of
the walls they set him down and he drew on his boots.

It was not until then that Sims's assistant made himself known.

"Hello, boss," he said and took off his broad hat so that Larkin could see
his face.

"Jimmie Welsh, by George!" whispered Bud joyfully, wringing his hand. "Did
you bring many of the boys down with you?"

"Fifty," replied the other.

"Bully for you! I don't know what would become of me if it weren't for you
and Hard-winter."

As they talked they were moving off toward the little river that wound
past the Bar T house.

"Got a horse for me?" asked Bud.

"Yes," said Sims, "over here in the bottoms where the rest of the boys
are."

"What do you plan to do now?"

Sims told him and Bud grinned delightedly at the same time that his face
hardened with the triumph of a revenge about to be accomplished.

"Let's get at it," he said.

"Wait here and I'll get the rest of the bunch."

Hard-winter left them, and in a few minutes returned with a dozen brawny
sheepmen, mostly recruited from Larkin's own ranch in Montana. When
greetings had been exchanged they moved off quietly toward the
ranch-house.

The corral of the Bar T was about fifty yards back of the cook's shanty
and as you faced it had a barn