an
A T O cow dead by a water-hole. They spoke incidentally of the Dinsmore
gang, a band of rustlers operating in No Man's Land. They had little
news of people, since neither of them had for three weeks seen another
human being except Quint Sullivan, the line-rider who fenced the A T O
cattle to the east of Roberts.

Presently Roberts nodded a good-bye and passed again into the solitude
of empty spaces. The land-waves swallowed him. Once more he followed
draws, crossed washes, climbed cow-backed hills, picking up drift-cattle
as he rode.

It was late afternoon when he saw a thin spiral of smoke from a rise of
ground. Smoke meant that some human being was abroad in the land, and
every man on the range called for investigation. The rider moved forward
to reconnoiter.

He saw a man, a horse, a cow, a calf, and a fire. When these five things
came together, it meant that somebody was branding. The present business
of Roberts was to find out what brand was on the cow and what one was
being run on the flank of the calf. He rode forward at a slow canter.

The man beside the fire straightened. He took off his hat and swept it
in front of him in a semicircle from left to right. The line-rider
understood the sign language of the plains. He was being "waved around."
The man was serving notice upon him to pass in a wide circle. It meant
that the dismounted man did not intend to let himself be recognized. The
easy deduction was that he was a rustler.

The cowboy rode steadily forward. The man beside the fire picked up a
rifle lying at his feet and dropped a bullet a few yards in front of the
advancing man.

Roberts drew to a halt. He was armed with a six-shooter, but a revolver
was of no use at this distance. For a moment he hesitated. Another
bullet lifted a spurt of dust almost at his horse's feet.

The line-rider waited for no more definite warning. He waved a hand
toward the rustler and shouted down the wind: "Some other day." Quickly
he swung his horse to the left and vanished into an arroyo. Then,
without an instant's loss of time, he put his pony swiftly up the draw
toward a "rim-rock" edging a mesa. Over to the right was Box Canon,
which led to the rough lands of a terrain unknown to Roberts. It was a
three-to-one chance that the rustler would disappear into the canon.

The young man rode fast, putting his bronco at the hills with a rush.
He was in a treeless country, covered with polecat brush. Through this
he plung