d following old game trails, or no
trails at all, the Texan pushed unhesitatingly forward. At last, just
as the dim outlines of the mountains were beginning to assume definite
shape in the first faint hint of the morning grey, he pulled into a
more extensive patch of timber than any they had passed and dismounting
motioned the others to the ground.

While the Texan prepared breakfast, Bat busied himself with the
blankets and when the meal was finished Alice found a tent awaiting
her, which the half-breed had constructed by throwing the pack-tarp
over a number of light poles whose ends rested upon a fallen
tree-trunk. Never in her life, thought the girl, as she sank into the
foot-thick mattress of pine boughs that underlay the blankets, had a
bed felt so comfortable, so absolutely satisfying. But her conscious
enjoyment of its comfort was short-lived for the sounds of men and
horses, and the low soughing of the wind in the pine-tops blended into
one, and she slept. Endicott, too, fell asleep almost as soon as he
touched the blankets which the half-breed had spread for him a short
distance back from the fire, notwithstanding the scant padding of pine
needles that interposed between him and mother earth.

Beside the fire the half-breed helped Tex wash the dishes, the while he
regarded the cowpuncher shrewdly as if to fathom what was passing in
his mind.

"Back in Wolf Rivaire, dey t'ink de pilgrim git hang. W'at for dey
mak' de posse?" he asked at length. The Texan finished washing the tin
plates, dried his hands, and rolled a cigarette, which he lighted
deliberately with a brand from the fire.

"Bat," he said with a glance toward the sleeping Endicott, "me an' you
has be'n right good friends for quite a spell. You recollect them four
bits, back in Las Vegas--" The half-breed interrupted him with a grin
and reaching into his shirt front withdrew a silver half-dollar which
depended from his neck by a rawhide thong.

"_Oui_, A'm don' git mooch chance to ferget dat four bit."

"Well, then, you got to help me through with this here, like I helped
you through when you stole Fatty's horse." The half-breed nodded and
Tex continued: "When that outfit goes up against the Wolf River hooch
you can bet someone's going to leak it out that there wasn't no reg'lar
bony-fido hangin' bee. That'll start a posse, an' that's why we got to
stay _cached_ good an' tight till this kind of blows over an' gives us
a chance to slip