lin' around here several times."

"Then you think he has some secret motive in getting hold of the ranch?"

"Sure as shootin'. That feller is a bad one--take it from me."

"Please don't make too much noise around here," went on Allen. "I was
thinking he might come again in the dark some night--to do a little
prospecting, or something like that."

"I get you. It would be just like him. Quiet it is." And after that the
pair spoke only in whispers.

Nothing was seen of the calves, and presently Rawlinson was on the point
of going back, when, all at once, something occurred to make him remain.

The night was intensely dark; not a star twinkled through the storm
clouds that scudded across the sky. Allen had just stubbed his toe on a
projecting root and had muttered something uncomplimentary to the
darkness of the night when an unusual sound caught the ears of the two
young men and stopped them dead in their tracks.

Some one was coming through the brush. Some one, like Allen, had
stumbled and was muttering under his breath.

"Shut up, can't you?" a second voice growled, and Allen's hand
instinctively went to Rawlinson's arm to quiet him.

"Two of them," he thought exultantly, as he held himself and the cowboy
against the trunk of a tree. "There may be some action after all."

The two strangers passed close enough to Allen and Rawlinson to have
touched them. But they did not notice the young men.

Allen and the cowboy, their blood tingling with excitement, followed the
pair, and when, some hundred yards on, the strangers stopped, they
stopped too, keeping within the shadow of the trees.

The strangers were bending over some sort of paper which they were
examining by the light of an electric torch.

"Here's the place, Jim," one of the men said, pointing first to the
paper and then into the shadow of the woods. "There's gold running wild
around here, man. I've tested the bed of the creek that runs down there,
and it's chock full of yellow men. Why, if we can get hold of this ranch
we're rich men--rich over night, I tell you!"

"Huh!" grunted the other, noncommittally. "How are you goin' to get hold
of this ranch? Ain't done it yet, so's any one could notice it."

"No, that's where you come in, Jim," replied the other, and as he turned
eagerly to his companion Allen and Rawlinson recognized the features of
Peter Levine. "This woman, this Mrs. Nelson who owns the place, won't
sell. I'm afraid she may have an idea