narrow rifts, and they opened out in three widely
opposite directions. The cup rim was almost equally divided into
three.

In a spacious corral of raw timbers a number of cattle were moving
restlessly about, vainly searching for something with which to satisfy
their voracious morning appetites. Close beside the corral was a small
branding forge, its fire smouldering dismally in the chill air. Round
about this, strewn upon the trampled grass, lay a number of branding
irons, coiled ropes, and all the paraphernalia of a cattle-thief's
trade, while beside the corral itself were three telltale saddle
horses, waiting ready for their riders on the first sound of alarm.

Fifty yards away stood a log hut. It was solid and practical, and
comparatively capacious. A couple of yards away a trench fire was
burning cheerfully. And over it, on an iron hook-stanchion, was
suspended a prairie cooking "billy," from which a steaming aroma, most
appetizing at that hour of the morning, was issuing. Various camping
utensils were scattered carelessly about, and a perfect atmosphere of
the most innocent homeliness prevailed.

On the sill of the hut door Will Henderson was seated smoking, with
his elbows planted on his knees, and his two hands supporting the bowl
of his pipe. His eyes were as calmly contemplative as those of the
stolen cattle in the corral.

To judge by his expression, he had no thought of danger, and his
affairs were prospering to his keenest satisfaction. His handsome
boyish face had lost all signs of dissipation. His eyes, if sullen,
were clear, with the perfect health of his outdoor, mountain life. Nor
was there anything of the vicious cattle-rustler about him. His whole
expression suggested the hard-working youngster of the West, virile,
strong, and bursting with the love of life.

But here, again, appearances were all wrong. Will's mood at that
moment was dissatisfied, suspicious. He was yearning for the
flesh-pots of town, as exampled by the bad whiskey and poker in Silas
Rocket's saloon.

Lying on the ground, close against the hut wall, two low-looking
half-breeds in gaudy shirts, and wearing their black hair long and
unkempt, were filling in the time waiting for breakfast, shooting
"crap dice." The only words spoken between them were the filthy
epithets and slang they addressed to the dice as they threw them, and
the deep-throated curses as money passed between them.

No, there was little enough to suggest the