in beauty and in its wonders of
changing colors.

Eastward the horizon lights a glowing yellow, shot with feathery
dashes of ruddy orange; yellow to green, and then the gray of the high
starlit vault. But the stars are dimming, whimpering under their loss
of power. Their archenemy of day is approaching, and they must shrink
away and hide till the fiery path of the monarch of the universe
cools, and they are left again to their own.

Doc Crombie was riding at the head of his men when the sun cleared the
horizon. He was staring ahead at the still hazy foot-hills, the
hiding-place of the criminal he sought. The light of battle was in his
keen, quick, luminous eyes. His face was set and stern. There was no
mercy in the set of his jaws, in the drawn shaggy brows. He was out to
rid the country, his country, of a scourge, a pestilence neither he
nor his fellow townsmen would tolerate.

The rest of the vigilantes rode behind him, no less stern-faced than
their leader. With fresh horses they had traveled long and hard that
night. The journey had been chilly, and the trail rough. Their tempers
were at a low ebb, and the condition only added to their determination
to hang the man as soon as he was in their power.

Doc drew rein suddenly and called Smallbones to his side. The trail,
which had now faded into something little better than a cattle track,
was leading into the mouth of a narrow valley, bordered on either side
by towering, forest-clad hills. He pointed ahead.

"That blamed kid said we'd keep right on down this cuttin' to the
third hill on the left," he said. "It's nigh four miles. Then we'd
find a clump of scrub with two lone pines standin' separate. Here we'd
get a track of cattle marked plenty. Then we'd follow that for nigh
two miles, and we'd drop into the rustlers' hollow."

"Sure. Don't sound a heap o' trouble," said Smallbones, cheerfully.

"Say, I'm not figgerin' the trouble. But we've traveled slow. We won't
make it for an hour an' more, an' we're well past sun-up now. It was
waitin' for the boys to git in. I sort o' wish I'd brought that kid
along."

They were moving on again at a rapid canter, and Smallbones was riding
at his side. The little man, like the rest, was armed liberally. But
whereas the others were, for the most part, content with two guns, he
had four. It would not be for lack of desire on his part if somebody
did not die before noon.

"We couldn't help startin' late," grumbled the lit