en quite right concerning the actions of Garth Conway. It
hardly required a clairvoyant mother for any man who knew both Conway
and Wayne Shandon to predict the haste with which Conway saddled and
left the Bar L-M, nor the direction he went.

"Old Mart's going to sleep restless to-night," mused Dart, to whom the
adventures of a guy named Jupiter, and a skirt who shall be nameless,
no longer appealed. "Them haymakers don't know enough to walk crooked
and cover their tracks the same time. Now with Red on the war path,
and me shaping his play right along--"

He grew deeply thoughtful over the delightful possibilities unfolding
to his highly coloured imagination. There was going to be something
doing now that would put an edge to this dull life. With what was
equivalent to a lining up of forces and an open declaration of
hostilities, with Red on the one hand pitted against the trio whom Dart
called the Haymakers, with a murder mystery to untangle, a robbery to
solve, and--not to be forgotten--Little Saxon guarded through the
winter months so that a winning horserace could be run in the spring,
Mr. Dart looked forward happily to a very busy time. Then there was
the Dry Valley irrigation scheme of which his limited knowledge must be
enlarged immediately, in order that he might "scrape up a few beans and
get them down while the game was wide open." And there was Helga
Strawn.

"I wouldn't have missed this here," said Mr. Dart solemnly, nodding his
head at a picture in his book of a lady without arms or superfluous
clothing, "not for the boodle of a U. S. senator."

He went to the bunk house door in time to see Garth riding out of the
corral, his horse floundering awkwardly in the drifts that were
steadily piling higher. Dart spat contemptuously.

"A measly little cur," he declared softly. "Crooked just because he
ain't got the guts to go straight. Them's the worst kind. They get
scared stiff and shoot you when you come in late, thinking you're a
second-story artist, and then they're sorry. Chances are he's
repenting right now and wishing he was dead and by morning he'll be
doing the knife act some more."

While Dart meditated, planned and philosophised, Wayne Shandon prepared
a quick meal for Helga Strawn.

"I know you're done up already," he said, "but it can't be helped.
You've got to get back to the Echo Creek to-night, if for no other
reason because it may be the last chance you'll have to get out at al