goin' on around this
outfit, Mary V's either doin' it er gettin' next to it so's she kin hold
a club over whoever done it. She mebby mighta saw him--if she was a mind
to tell."

"Yeah--that shore is Mary V," Bud agreed heartily. "Bawl yuh out quick
enough if they's anything yuh want kep' under cover, and then turnin'
right around and makin' a clam ashamed of itself for a mouthy cuss if yuh
want to know anything right bad. Bound she'd go with us getherin' hosses
when she wasn't needed nor wanted, and now when we're short-handed, she
ain't able to see us no more a-tall when we start off. You'll have to git
upon 'er blind side some way, Bill, er she won't tell, if she does know
who rode Jake."

"Blind side?" Bill snorted. "Mary V ain't got no blind side 't I ever
seen."

"And that's right too. Ain't it the truth! I don't guess, Bill, yuh
better let on to Mary V nothin' about it. Then they's a chance she may
tell yuh jest to spite the other feller, if she does happen to know. A
slim chance--but still she might."

"Slim chance is right!" Bill stated with feeling.

During this colloquy Mary V's ears might have burned, had Mary V not been
too thoroughly engrossed with her own emotions to be sensitive to the
emotions of others.

Mary V was pounding along toward Black Ridge--or Snake Ridge, as some
preferred to call it. She was tired, of course. Her head ached, and more
than once she slowed Tango to a walk while she debated with herself
whether it was really worth while to wear herself completely out in the
cause of righteousness.

Mary V did not in the least suspect just how righteous was the cause. How
could she know, for instance, that Rolling R horses were being selected
just as carefully on the southern range as they were to the north, since
even that shrewd range man, her father, certainly had no suspicion that
the revolutionists farther to the east in Mexico would presently begin
to ride fresh mounts with freshly blotched brands? He had vaguely feared
a raid, perhaps, but even that fear was not strong enough to impel him to
keep more than one man at Sinkhole.

Sudden was not the man to overlook a sure profit while he guarded against
a possible danger. He needed all the riders he had, or could get, to
break horses for the buyers that were beginning to make regular trips
through the country. He knew, too, that it would take more than two or
three men at Sinkhole to stand off a raid, and that one man with a
telep