eparture of the men, Brevoort told Pete that they
would take turn about riding the north line, in an eight-hour shift,
and he cautioned Pete to be on the lookout for a messenger riding a bay
horse--"Not a cow-horse, but a thoroughbred."

This was at the line shack.

Several nights later, as Pete was riding his line, he noticed that Blue
Smoke occasionally stopped and sniffed, and always toward the north.
Near the northwestern angle of the fence, Pete thought he could hear
the distant drumming of hoofs. Blue Smoke fretted and fought the bit.
Pete dismounted and peered into the darkness. The rhythmic stride of a
running horse came to him--not the quick patter of a cow-pony, but the
long, sweeping stride of a racer.

Then out of the night burst a rider on a foam-flecked horse that reared
almost into the gate, which Pete unlooped and dragged back.

"That you, Brevoort?" called the horseman.

"He's at the shack," Pete shouted, as the other swept past.

"Looks like we're goin' to be right busy," reflected Pete as he swung
to the saddle. "We'll jest jog over to the shack and report."

When he arrived at the line shack, Brevoort was talking with the
hard-riding messenger. Near them stood the thoroughbred, his flanks
heaving, his neck sweat-blackened, his sides quivering with fatigue.
He had covered fifty miles in five hours.

"--and countin' the Concho stuff--I'd say something like two hundred
head," the messenger was saying. "Brent'll be in to-morrow, long 'bout
noon. So far, she worked slick. No trouble and a show of gettin'
through without any trouble. Not much young stock, so they're drivin'
fast."

Brevoort turned to Pete. "Take this horse over to the corral. Tell
Moody that Harper is in, and that the boys will be here in a couple of
days. He'll know what to do."

Pete rode at a high lope, leading the thoroughbred, and wondering why
the messenger had not gone on to the corral. Moody, the cook, a
grizzled, heavy-featured man, too old for hard riding, expressed no
surprise at Pete's message, but awakened the Mexican stableman and told
him to fetch up a "real one," which the Mexican did with alertness,
returning to the house leading another sleek and powerful thoroughbred.
"Take him over to the shack," said Moody. "Harper wants him." And he
gave Pete a package of food which he had been preparing while the
Mexican was at the stable.

When Pete returned to the line shack he found Brevoort sitting in t