ning to the puncher's
description of it. But she thought it looked dangerous. At the point from
which she viewed it, it was not more than fifteen or twenty feet below
her. It cut into the plateau, running far back and doubling around toward
her, and the stretch below her, that was within range of her eyes, was
almost level. The wall of the cut on which she stood was ragged and
uneven, with some scraggly brush thrusting out between the crevices of
rocks, and about ten feet down was a flat rock, like a ledge, that
projected several feet out over the level below.

She was about to turn, for she had seen all she cared to see, when an
impulse of curiosity urged her to crane her neck to attempt to peer
around a shoulder of the cut where it doubled back. She started and
turned pale, not so much from fright as with surprise, for she saw a
horse's head projecting around the shoulder of the cut, and the animal
was looking directly at her. As she drew back, her breath coming fast,
the animal whinnied gently.

Almost instantly, she heard a man's voice:

"My cayuse is gettin' tired of loafin', I reckon." Ruth held her breath.
The voice seemed to come from beneath her feet--she judged that it really
had come from beneath the rock that projected from the wall of the cut
below her. And it was Chavis' voice!

Of course, he would not be talking to himself, and therefore there must
be another man with him. At the risk of detection, and filled with an
overwhelming curiosity to hear more she kneeled at the edge of the cut
and listened intently, first making sure that the horse she had seen
could not see her.

"I reckon Linton didn't pull it off--or them Flyin' W guys are stickin'
close to the herd," said another voice. "He ought to have been here an
hour ago."

"Linton ain't no rusher," said Chavis. "We'll wait."

There was a silence. Then Chavis spoke again:

"Flyin' W stock is particular easy to run off. Did I tell you? B---- told
me"--Ruth did not catch the name, she thought it might have been Bennet,
or Ben--"that the girl had give orders that anyone ketched runnin' off
Flyin' W stock wasn't to be hung!" Ruth heard him chuckle. "Easy boss,
eh, Kester?" He sneered. "Ketch that damned Flyin' W outfit hangin'
anybody!"

Kester was one of the men who had quit the day that Ruth had met
Randerson, when the latter had been riding in for the money due them. It
did not surprise Ruth to discover that Kester was with Chavis, for
Rander