nger as though beating time to the movement
of his mental machinery.

"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good
start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in
giving him longer. How about it?"

Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I
haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers
Tom Blair?" he digressed.

"I do," said Grover.

"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.

"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.

"I guess we all have," added another.

Again Mick's eye, like a flashlight, passed from man to man.

"Well," he announced, "I may be wrong, but I've got reason to believe it
was Tom Blair who did the job last night, and that he's somewhere this
side the river right now."

For a moment there was silence, while the idea took root.

"I supposed he was dead long ago," remarked Stetson at last.

"So did I, until a month ago--until the last time I was in town stocking
up. I met a fellow there then from the country west of the river, and it
all came out. Blair's been stampin' that range for a year, and they're
suspicious of him. He disappears every now and then, and they think he
keeps in with a gang of rustlers who have their headquarters over in the
Johnson's Hole country in Wyoming. The fellow said he kept up
appearances by claiming he owned a ranch on this side--the Big B. That's
how we came to speak of him."

"Queer," commented Stetson, "that if it's Blair, he hasn't been around
before. It's been ten years now since he disappeared, hasn't it?"

"More than that," corrected Mick. "That's another reason I believe it's
him; that, and the fact that I didn't do nothin' the last time I was
held up. It must be one lone rustler who's operating or there'd be
more'n a couple of hosses missing. Then it must be some feller that
knows the Big B, and has a particular grudge against it, or why would
they have passed the Broken Kettle or the Lone Buffalo on the west?
Morris has a whole herd, and his main hoss sheds are in an old creek-bed
a mile away from the ranch-house. I tell you it's some feller who knows
this country and knows me."

"I believe you're right about him being this side of the river," broke
in Thompson. "When I was over after the mail two days ago there was
water running on the ice; and it's been warmer since. It must be wide
open in spots now. A man who knows t