hearsing, for while he did not know in just what manner
he would reveal his ideas concerning them, he knew what his ideas were
and he had always been good at extemporizing when under pressure, and he
was under pressure now if he had ever been.

The extra work was hard enough in itself to cause his anger to rise
and to create sensitiveness and surliness on the part of his men, but
it was only one factor of his discontent. Busy all day at driving the
scattered cattle away from the Backbone and closer to the ranch proper
where they would be less likely to fall prey to Apache raiders; working
all day from the first sign of dawn to the prohibitive blackness of the
night, they could have stood up under the strain, for these were men of
iron, inured to hardships and constant riding. But hardy as they were
there was one thing which they must have, and that was sleep. If they
could have only four hours of unbroken sleep when they threw themselves,
fully dressed with the exception of their boots, in their bunks, they
could have endured the labor for weeks. But this was denied them, and
constantly on their minds were thoughts of fire, slaughtered cattle
and death.

For a week night had been a terror on the Cross Bar-8. No sooner had the
exhausted outfit fallen asleep than bits of window glass would fly about
them, cutting and stinging. There was not a whole window pane in the house
and the door was so full of lead that it sagged on its half-shattered
hinges. Cooking utensils were fast deserving premiums, for hardly an
unperforated tin could be found on the premises. And their cook, a
Mexican, who most devoutly believed in a personal devil and a brimstone
hell, and who feared that he was living in uncomfortable proximity to
both, stood the strain for just two nights and then, panic-stricken, had
fled from the accursed place and left them to get their own meals as
best they could. The protection of the saints was all very well and good
under ordinary circumstances, but when they failed to stop the bullets
which passed through his cook shack and which more than once had grazed
him, it was time for him to find some place far removed from the Cross
Bar-8, and where the devil was less strong. When the saints allowed a
devil-sped bullet to completely shatter a crucifix it was time to migrate,
which he did, but in broad daylight when the outfit had departed and when
the devil was not in evidence.

The interiors of both the ranch house a