l up the side
of that bronc we better be hittin' the trail. If we can make the
timber at the head of Cow Creek divide by daylight, we can slip down
into the bad lands tomorrow night."

Endicott painfully raised a foot to the stirrup, and the Texan turned
abruptly to the girl.

"Can you make it?" he asked. She replied with an eager affirmative and
the Texan shot her a glance of approval as he watched her mount, for
well he knew that she must have fared very little better than Endicott
in the matter of aching muscles.

Mile after mile the four rode in silence, Tex in the lead with Bat
Lajune close by his side. An occasional backward glance revealed the
clumsy efforts of the pilgrim to ease himself in the saddle, and the
set look of determination upon the tired face of the girl.

"Winthrup ain't wearin' well," thought the cowboy as his lips twisted
into a smile, "but what could you expect with a name like that? I'm
afraid Winthrup is goin' to wish I hadn't interfered none with his
demise, but he won't squawk, an' neither will she. There's the makin's
of a couple of good folks wasted in them two pilgrims," and he frowned
darkly at the recollection of the note of genuine relief and gladness
with which the girl had greeted Endicott; a frown that deepened at the
girl's impulsive words to himself, "I think you are just splendid.
I'll never distrust you again." "She's a fool!" he muttered under his
breath. At his side the half-breed regarded him shrewdly from under
the broad brim of his hat.

"Dat girl she dam' fine 'oman. She got, w'at you call, de nerve."

"It's a good thing it ain't daytime," growled the Texan surlily, "or
that there tongue of yourn would get sun-burnt the way you keep it
a-goin'."

Upon the crest of a high foothill that is a spur of Tiger Ridge, Tex
swerved abruptly from the trail and headed straight for the mountains
that loomed out of the darkness. On and on he rode, keeping wherever
possible to the higher levels to avoid the fences of the nesters whose
fields and pastures followed the windings of the creek bottoms.

Higher and higher they climbed and rougher grew the way. The scrub
willows gave place to patches of bull pine and the long stretches of
buffalo grass to ugly bare patches of black rock. In and out of the
scrub timber they wended, following deep coulees to their sources and
crossing steep-pitched divides into other coulees. The fences of the
nesters were left far behind an