Most old-timers would have found a canter none too
fast. But Jack Roberts held to a steady road gait. Not once did he look
back--but every foot of the way till he had turned a bend in the canon
there was an ache in the small of his back. It was a purely sympathetic
sensation, for at any moment a bullet might come crashing between the
shoulders.

Once safely out of range the rider mopped a perspiring face.

"Wow! This is your lucky day, Jack. Ain't you got better sense than to
trail rustlers with no weapon but a Sunday-School text? Well, here's
hopin'! Maybe we'll meet again in the sweet by an' by. You never can
always tell."

CHAPTER II

"I'LL BE SEVENTEEN, COMING GRASS"

The camper looked up from the antelope steak he was frying, to watch a
man cross the shallow creek. In the clear morning light of the Southwest
his eyes had picked the rider out of the surrounding landscape nearly an
hour before. For at least one fourth of the time since this discovery he
had been aware that his approaching visitor was Pedro Menendez, of the
A T O ranch.

"Better 'light, son," suggested Roberts.

The Mexican flashed a white-toothed smile at the sizzling steak, took
one whiff of the coffee and slid from the saddle. Eating was one of the
things that Pedro did best.

"The ol' man--he sen' me," the boy explained. "He wan' you at the
ranch."

Further explanation waited till the edge of Pedro's appetite was
blunted. The line-rider lighted a cigarette and casually asked a
question.

"Whyfor does he want me?"

It developed that the Mexican had been sent to relieve Roberts because
the latter was needed to take charge of a trail herd. Not by the flicker
of an eyelash did the line-rider show that this news meant anything to
him. It was promotion--better pay, a better chance for advancement, an
easier life. But Jack Roberts had learned to take good and ill fortune
with the impassive face of a gambler.

"Keep an eye out for rustlers, Pedro," he advised before he left. "You
want to watch Box Canon. Unless I'm 'way off, the Dinsmore gang are
operatin' through it. I 'most caught one red-handed the other day. Lucky
for me I didn't. You an' Jumbo would 'a' had to bury me out on the lone
prairee."

Nearly ten hours later Jack Roberts dismounted in front of the
whitewashed adobe house that was the headquarters of the A T O ranch. On
the porch an old cattleman sat slouched in a chair tilted back against
the wall, a run-down heel