he had kept silent, borrowing no trouble and trusting to his ability to
identify himself. But now at the prospect of idling here all night and
part of the day he protested.

"Turn my arms loose, will you?" he demanded. "They're about broke off."

Joe, the chief, after carefully searching him for additional weapons,
complied with his request, in so far that he bound his wrists together in
front.

"Now, boys," said Bud, crisply, "I wish you'd tell me what this all means.
If you want to question me, do it now and let me go, for I've got mighty
important business up the line a way."

"I allow yuh have," remarked Joe, dryly. "Yuh also got some mighty
important business right here, if yuh only knowed it."

"What business."

"Fannin' yore gun at us that-a-way. Yore plumb careless, young feller. But
look here, I'm not a-goin' to stay up all night talkin' to yuh. You'll
have to talk to all the boys in the mornin'."

"But I can't wait till morning, I tell you," cried Bud, exasperated.
"Every minute I sit here I may be losing thousands of dollars. For
Heaven's sake let me go to-night, and I'll come back any other time you
say. I give you my word for it."

"Can't wait till to-morrer! Stranger, you may wait till the crack o' doom
before you ever get back to that business o' yourn."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Larkin, made strangely ill at ease by
some veiled meaning in the other's tone.

"Got to leave it to the boys," was Joe's evasive reply. "Better lay down
and git some sleep; likely to be busy all day to-morrer."

And Larkin, finding that all argument was as futile as trying to crack
Gibraltar with a cold chisel, relapsed into silence, and prepared to get
what rest he could until daylight.

Morning disclosed the fact that the group of men numbered about ten, each
with a horse near by, and all fully supplied with arms. In fact, there was
not a man among them who could not have "rolled a gun" with both hands if
necessary, and at the same time carried a knife between his teeth. This
matter of complete armament, together with Joe's ambiguous speeches of the
night before, wholly convinced Larkin that he had fallen in with a band of
rustlers.

Breakfast was prepared for himself by each man, Joe attending to the wants
of the prisoner, but no attempt was made to rope or saddle the horses.
They were evidently waiting for something. What this was became evident
shortly when another group of five men appeared around a