about their business.

"Git!" ordered the big rancher. "And keep gitting till you've crossed
the border. Don't look back any. Jest burn the wind. _Adios_."

"They meant to gun you, Dave," guessed the owner of the horse ranch.
"I reckon they daren't shoot with me loafing there across the road.
You kinder disarranged their plans some more by dropping in at their
back door. Looks like you'd 'a' rumpled up their hair a few if you
hadn't been in such a hurry to make a get-away. Which brings us back
to the previous question. The unanimous sense of the meeting is that
you come through with some information, Dave. Where is that gunnysack?"

Dave, still sitting on the ground, leaned his back against a tree and
grinned amiably at his questioner. "Sounds like you-all been to school
to a parrot. You must 'a' quituated after you learned one sentence."

"We're waiting for an answer, Dave."

The cool, steady eyes of Dingwell met the imperious ones of the other
man in a long even gaze. "Nothing doing, Hal."

"Even split, Dave. Fifty-fifty."

The sitting man shook his head. "I'll split the reward with you when I
get it. The sack goes back to the express company."

"We'll see about that." Rutherford turned to his son and gave brisk
orders. "Bring up the horses. We'll get out of here. You ride with
me, Jeff. We'll take care of Dingwell. The rest of you scatter.
We're going back to the park."

The Rutherfords and their captive followed no main road, but cut across
country in a direction where they would be less likely to meet
travelers. It was a land of mesquite and prickly pear. The sting of
the cactus bit home in the darkness as its claws clutched at the riders
winding their slow way through the chaparral.

Gray day was dawning when they crossed the Creosote Flats and were seen
by a sheep-herder at a distance. The sun was high in the heavens
before they reached the defile which served as a gateway between the
foothills and the range beyond. It had passed the meridian by the time
they were among the summits where they could look back upon rounded
hills numberless as the billows of a sea. Deeper and always deeper
they plunged into the maze of canons which gashed into the saddles
between the peaks. Blue-tinted dusk was enveloping the hills as they
dropped down through a wooded ravine into Huerfano Park.

"Home soon," Dave suggested cheerfully to his captors. "I sure am
hungry enough to eat a governmen