after the first flurry
was over.

"We're looking for Mont Sterry."

"Wal, what made you take me for him? Do I look like him in the
moonlight?"

"But you said you were, and fired at us," explained one.

"Fired at you? Said I was that chap? What in the mischief are you
driving at?"

One, who suspected the truth, now interposed.

"We did meet Sterry and hailed him; you must have heard our guns; he
dashed into the arroya; we saw you gallop out on t'other side, and
took you for him."

"Ah, I understand it all now," replied Inman; "I had ridden down there
on my way back from a little scout, when a horseman dashed into the
slope behind me like a thunderbolt. My horse was so scared that he
went up the other side on the jump, and before I could turn around to
find out what it all meant, you lunkheads came down on me with the
request to oblige you by throwing up my hands, which I will see you
hanged before I'll do."

"But where is he? What has become of him?" asked several, looking
around, as thought they expected to see the young man ride forward and
surrender himself.

"Wal, calling to mind the kind of horse he rides, I should say he is
about a half-mile off by this time, laughing to find out how cleverly
he has fooled you chaps."

"It looks as if you was in the same boat, Inman," retorted one of the
chagrined party.

"I wasn't chasing Sterry."

"He seemed to be chasing you, for you came out of the arroya ahead of
him."

"If he was chasing me," replied the leader, who felt that the laugh
was on his companions, "he would have followed me out; but I don't see
anything of him;" and he, too, stared around, as though not sure the
man would not do the improbable thing named.

"It was a blamed cute trick, any way you look at it," remarked one of
the party. "It was queer that you should have been there, Inman, just
at the minute needed. But for that, we would have had him, sure."

"Wal, you can make up your mind that we have him as good as catched
already. He can't get out of the country without some of the boys
running against him, and the first rustler that catches sight of Mr.
Sterry will drop him in his tracks."

"If he gets the chance to do it," was the wise comment of another.
"That fellow is quick on the shoot and isn't afraid of any of us."

"He ain't the first one that's made that mistake, only to find himself
rounded up at last. Larch Cadmus' idea of 24 hours' notice don't go
down with this crowd, eh?