old what
Meldrum had said. So, of course, Miss Beulah she sent the children
home and rode down to the hawss ranch to get her father or one of her
brothers. None of them were at home and she hit the trail alone to
warn us."

"I knew my people would be blamed for what this man did, so I blocked
him," explained the girl with her habitual effect of hostile pride.

"You said you would let Tighe have his way next time, but you don't
need to apologize for breaking yore word, Miss Beulah," responded
Dingwell with his friendly smile. "All we've got to say is that you've
got chalked up against us an account we'll never be able to pay."

The color beat into her cheeks. She was both embarrassed and annoyed.
With a gesture of impatience she turned away and walked to Blacky.
Lithely she swung to the saddle.

Mrs. Hart had come to the porch. In her harassed countenance still
lingered the remains of good looks. The droop at the corners of her
mouth suggested a faint resentment against a fate which had stolen her
youth without leaving the compensations of middle life.

"Won't you light off'n yore bronc and stay to supper, Miss Rutherford?"
she invited.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hart. I can't. Must get home."

With a little nod to the woman she swung her horse around and was gone.

Hart did not show up for supper nor for breakfast. It was an easy
guess that he lacked the hardihood to face them after his attempted
betrayal. At all events, they saw nothing of him before they left in
the morning. If they had penetrated his wife's tight-lipped reserve,
they might have shared her opinion, that he had gone off on a long
drinking-bout with Dan Meldrum.

Leisurely Beaudry and his friend rode down through the chaparral to
Battle Butte.

On the outskirts of the town they met Ned Rutherford. After they had
passed him, he turned and followed in their tracks.

Dingwell grinned across at Roy. "Some thorough our friends are. A
bulldog has got nothing on them. They're hanging around to help me dig
up that gunnysack when I get ready."

The two men rode straight to the office of the sheriff and had a talk
with him. From there they went to the hotel where Dave usually put up
when he was in town. Over their dinner the cattleman renewed an offer
he had been urging upon Roy all the way down from Hart's place. He
needed a reliable man to help him manage the different holdings he had
been accumulating. His proposition was to take Beaud