of the reserve.'" He bit savagely at his pipe. Suddenly his
tension relaxed and his wonted shrewdly humorous expression returned to
his brown and lean old face. "Ross," said he, "this is going to be plumb
amusing. Do you guess we-all can track up with any sheep?"

"Jim Hutchins's herders must have sneaked back over by Iron Mountain,"
suggested Fletcher.

"Jim Hutchins," mused California John; "where is he now? Know?"

"I heard tell he was at Stockton."

"Well, that's all right then. If Jim was around, he might start a
shootin' row, and we don't want any of that."

"Well, I don't know as I'm afraid of Jim Hutchins," said Ross Fletcher.

"Neither am I, sonny," replied California John; "but this is a
grand-stand play, and we got to bring her off without complications. You
get the boys organized. We start to-morrow."

"What you got up your sleeve?" asked Ross.

"Never you mind."

"Who's going to have charge of the office?"

"Nobody," stated California John positively; "we tackle one thing to a
time."

Next day the six rangers under command of their supervisor disappeared
in the wilderness. When they reached the trackless country of the
granite and snow and the lost short-hair meadows, they began scouting.
Sign of sheep they found in plenty, but no sheep. Signal smokes over
distant ranges rose straight up, and died; but never could they discover
where the fire had been burned. Sheepmen of the old type are the best of
mountaineers, and their skill has been so often tested that they are as
full of tricks as so many foxes. The fires they burned left no ash. The
smokes they sent up warned all for two hundred miles.

Nevertheless, by the end of three days young Tom Carroll and Charley
Morton trailed down a band of three thousand head. They came upon the
flock grazing peacefully over blind hillsides in the torment of
splintered granite. The herders grinned, as the rangers came in sight.
They had been "tagged" in this "game of hide and coop." As a matter of
course they began to pack their camp on the two burros that grazed among
the sheep; they ordered the dogs to round up the flock. For two weeks
they had grazed unmolested, and they were perfectly satisfied to pay the
inconvenience of a day's journey over to the Inyo line.

"'llo boys," said their leader, flashing his teeth at them. "'Wan start
now?"

"These Jim Hutchins's sheep?" inquired Carroll.

But at that question the Frenchman suddenly lost all his comman