on crashed down on his hat and stunned him.

He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was
struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He
knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with
both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel
flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain
that blotted out the world.

As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a
far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him.

"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after
all, Brad."

Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took
form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated
detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings.

"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned
anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned.

"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a
third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone.

A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No
hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a
final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner.

"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester
quietly.

"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit
doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen
fellow who had been called Brad.

There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of
them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was
Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit.

They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced
consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south,
while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the
horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding
among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through
the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks
beyond.

This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek
heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide
vistas of tangled, wooded canons and hills innumerable as sea billows.
Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper.