Daylight came, and
found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that
this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had
preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to
connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode
in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while
honest folks kept their beds.

The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick
clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of
a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin
squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine
boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle.

"We'll 'light hyer," he announced.

"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I
usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock."

"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard
answered surlily.

He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly.
Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant
conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but
for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly
monosyllables.

There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching
shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their
primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been
set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality.

The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a
breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of
the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of
his plate for use in an emergency.

Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have
extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested.

"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore
with gusto.

"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no
hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the
top of my head to testify against you."

Irwin swore violently.

"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared.

Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly.

"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss
shows up or gives the signal."

The bi