y over the rail of the bar.

"No, not even a trail."

"Looked, have you?" The single searchlight turned unwinkingly upon the
other's face.

"Yes, I've been out all day. Made a circle of the places within forty
miles--Russel's of the Circle R, Stetson's of the 'XI,' Frazier's,
Rankin's--none of them have seen a sign of a stray."

"That settles it, then. Those horses were stolen." The red face with its
bristle of buff and gray came closer. "I didn't think they'd strayed.
The two best horses on a ranch don't wander off by chance; if they'd
been broncos it might have been different. It's the same thing as three
years ago; pretty nearly the same date too--early in January it was, you
remember!"

Bob's long head nodded confirmation. "Yes. We thought then they'd come
around all right in the next round up, but they didn't, and never have."

Kennedy stepped back, spread his hands palm down upon the bar, leaned
his full weight upon them, and gazed meditatively at the other occupants
of the room. A question was in his mind. Should he take these men into
his confidence and trust to their well-known method of dealing with
rustlers--a method very effective when successful in catching the
offender, but infinitely deficient in finesse--or depend wholly upon his
own ingenuity? He decided that in this instance the latter offered
little hope. His province was in dealing with people at close range.

"Boys,"--his voice was normal, but not a man in the room failed to give
attention,--"boys, line up! It's on the house."

Promptly the card games ceased. In one, the pot lay as it was, its
ownership undecided, in the centre of the table. The loungers' feet
dropped to the floor. An inebriate, half dozing in the corner, awoke.
Well they knew it was for no small reason that Mick interrupted their
diversions. Up they came--Grover of the far-away "XXX" ranch, who had
been here for two days now, and had lost the price of a small herd;
Gilbert of the "Lost Range," whose brand was a circle within a circle;
Stetson of the "XI," a short heavy-set man, with an immovable pugilist's
face, to-night, as usual, ahead of the game; Thompson, one-armed but
formidable, who drove the stage and kept the postoffice and inadequate
general store just across to the north of the saloon; McFadden, a wiry
little Scotchman with sandy whiskers, Rankin's nearest neighbor to the
south; a half-dozen lesser lights, in distinction from the big ranchers
called by their fir