their mouths and noses as
Tex and Bat had done. The drooping animals revived wonderfully under
the treatment and, with the long green line of scrub timber now plainly
in sight, evinced an eagerness for the trail that, since the departure
from Antelope Butte, had been entirely wanting. As the man assisted
the girl to mount, he saw that she was crying.

"They'll come out, all right," he assured her. "As soon as we hit the
river and I can get a fresh horse, I'm going back."

"Going back!"

"Going back, of course--with water. You do not expect me to leave
them?"

"No, I don't expect you to leave them! Oh, Winthrop, I--" her voice
choked up and the sentence was never finished.

"Buck up, little girl, an hour will put us at the river," he swung into
the saddle and headed southward, glad of a respite from the galling,
scalding torture of walking in high-heeled boots.

Had Endicott combed Montana throughout its length and breadth he could
have found no more evil, disreputable character than Long Bill Kearney.
Despised by honest citizens and the renegades of the bad lands, alike,
he nevertheless served these latter by furnishing them whiskey and
supplies at exorbitant prices. Also, he bootlegged systematically to
the Port Belknap Indians, which fact, while a matter of common
knowledge, the Government had never been able to prove. So Long Bill,
making a living ostensibly by maintaining a flat-boat ferry and a few
head of mangy cattle, continued to ply his despicable trade. Even
passing cowboys avoided him and Long Bill was left pretty much to his
own evil devices.

It was the cabin of this scum of the outland that Endicott and Alice
approached after pushing up the river for a mile or more from the point
where they had reached it by means of a deep coulee that wound
tortuously through the breaks. Long Bill stood in his doorway and eyed
the pair sullenly as they drew rein and climbed stiffly from the
saddles. Alice glanced with disgust into the sallow face with its
unkempt, straggling beard, and involuntarily recoiled as her eyes met
the leer with which he regarded her as Endicott addressed him:

"We've been fighting the dust storm for two days, and we've got to have
grub and some real water, quick."

The man regarded him with slow insolence: "The hell ye hev," he
drawled; "Timber City's only seven mile, ef ye was acrost the river. I
hain't runnin' no hotel, an' grub-liners hain't welcome."

"God, man! Y