g some from the first jump. Horse and man took
the straightest trail and went ripping through a patch of mesquite that
a man would generally go round. Then there's something else. Want to
see?'

They went with him, the professor with alacrity, Helen with a studied
pretence at indifference. By the spring where Helen had found the
willow rod and the bluebird feather, Howard stopped and pointed down.

'There's a set of tracks for you,' he announced triumphantly. 'Suppose
you spell 'em out, professor; what do you make of them?'

The professor studied them gravely. In the end he shook his head.

'Coyote?' he suggested.

Howard shook his head.

'No coyote,' he said with positiveness. 'That track shows a foot four
times as big as any coyote's that ever scratched fleas. Wolf? Maybe.
It would be a whopper of a wolf at that. Look at the size of it, man!
Why, the ugly brute would be big enough to scare my prize shorthorn
bull into taking out life insurance. And that isn't all. That's just
the front foot. Now look at the hind foot. Smaller, longer, and
leaving a lighter imprint. All belonging to the same animal.' He
scratched his head in frank bewilderment. 'It's a new one on me,' he
confessed frankly. Then he chuckled. 'I'd bet a man that the gent who
left on the hasty foot just got one squint at this little beastie and
at that had all sorts of good reasons for streaking out.'

A big lizard went rustling through a pile of dead leaves and all three
of them started. Howard laughed.

'We're right near Superstition Pool!' he informed them with suddenly
assumed gravity. 'Down in Poco Poco they tell some great tales about
the old Indian gods going man-hunting by moonlight. _Quien sabe_, huh?'

Professor Longstreet snorted. Helen cast a quick, interested look at
the stranger and one of near triumph upon her father.

'I smell somebody's coffee boiling,' said the cattleman abruptly. 'Am
I invited in for a cup? Or shall I mosey on? Don't be bashful in
saying I'm not wanted if I'm not.'

'Of course you are welcome,' said Longstreet heartily. But Howard
turned to Helen and waited for her to speak.

'Of course.' said Helen carelessly.

Chapter III

Payment in Raw Gold

'You were merely speaking by way of jest, I take it, Mr. Howard,'
remarked Longstreet, after he had interestedly watched the rancher put
a third and fourth heaping spoonful of sugar in his tin cup of coffee.
'I refer, you under