m where Roy stood, a Mexican _jacal_ looked down into the canon.
The hut was a large one. It was built of upright poles daubed with
clay. Sloping poles formed the roof, the chinks of which were
waterproofed with grass. A wolf pelt, nailed to the wall, was hanging
up to dry.

He knew that this was the home of Meldrum, the ex-convict.

Beaudry followed a bed of boulders that straggled toward the pine
grove. It was light enough now, and he had to move with caution so as
to take advantage of all the cover he could find. Once in the grove,
he crawled from tree to tree. The distance from the nearest pine to
the jacal was about thirty feet. A clump of _cholla_ grew thick just
outside the window. Roy crouched behind the trunk for several minutes
before he could bring himself to take the chance of covering that last
ten yards. But every minute it was getting lighter. Every minute
increased the likelihood of detection. He crept fearfully to the hut,
huddled behind the cactus, and looked into the window.

A heavy-set man, with the muscle-bound shoulders of an ape, was
lighting a fire in the stove. At the table, his thumbs hitched in a
sagging revolver belt, sat Ned Rutherford. The third person in the
room lay stretched at supple ease on a bed to one of the posts of which
his right leg was bound. He was reading a newspaper.

"Get a move on you, Meldrum," young Rutherford said jauntily, with an
eye on his prisoner to see how he took it. "I've got inside
information that I need some hot cakes, a few slices of bacon, and a
cup of coffee. How about it, Dave? Won't you order breakfast, too?"

The man on the bed shook his head indifferently. "Me, I'm taking the
fast cure. I been reading that we all eat too much, anyhow. What's
the use of stuffing--gets yore system all clogged up. Now, take
Edison--he don't eat but a handful of rice a day."

"That's one handful more than you been eating for the past three days.
Better come through with what we want to know. This thing ain't going
to get any better for you. A man has got to eat to live."

"I'm trying out another theory. Tell you-all about how it works in a
week or so. I reckon after a time I'll get real hungry, but it don't
seem like I could relish any chuck yet." The cattleman fell to
perusing his paper once more.

Royal Beaudry had never met his father's friend, Dave Dingwell, but he
needed no introduction to this brown-faced man who mocked his guard
wi