scraggly, thin willow growth that had
winding cow trails running through it. Into one of these Lance turned,
rode deep into the sparse growth, stopped where the trail swung round
a huge, detached boulder, dismounted and dropped Coaley's reins to the
ground and retraced his steps some distance from the trail, stepping
on rocks here and there and keeping off damp spots.

He reached the thin edge of the grove, stood behind a stocky bush and
waited. In two or three minutes--they seemed ten to Lance--he saw the
head and shoulders of a rider just emerging from the gully he himself
had so lately followed.

Back on Coaley, following the winding trail, Lance pondered the
matter. The way he had come was no highway--no trail that any rider
would follow on any business save one. But just why should he be
followed? He had thought at first that some one was trailing the
Devil's Tooth outfit, as he had been doing, but now it seemed plain
that he himself was the quarry.

He flicked the reins on Coaley's satiny neck, and the horse broke at
once into a springy, swift trot, following the purposeless winding of
the cow path. When they emerged upon the other side where the creek
gurgled over a patch of rocks like cobblestones, Lance stopped and let
him take a sip or two of water, then struck off toward the bluff,
letting Coaley choose his own pace, taking care that he kept to low
ground where he could not be seen.

For an hour he rode and came to the junction of Mill Creek and the
Squaw. Then, climbing through chokecherry thickets up a draw that led
by winding ways to higher ground, Lance stopped and scrutinized the
bottomland over which he had passed. Coaley stood alert, watching also
that back trail, his ears turned forward, listening. After a moment,
he began to take little mincing steps sidewise, pulling impatiently at
the reins. As plainly as a horse could tell it, Coaley implored Lance
to go on. But Lance waited until, crossing an open space, he saw a
rider coming along at a shambling trot on the trail he had himself
lately followed.

He frowned thoughtfully, turned Coaley toward home and rode swiftly in
a long, distance-devouring lope.

He reached the ranch somewhere near ten o'clock, surprising Belle in
the act of harnessing her pintos to a new buckboard at which they
shied hypocritically. Belle stared at him round-eyed over the backs of
her team.

"My good Lord, Lance! You--you could be Tom's twin, in that hat and on
that