rode up to the house, and the first thing that met them was the
candid question of the girl:

"Have you heard, Daddy?"

And out of his troubled heart he had answered, "Beats me, 'Lissie."

"They've sent for the officers. Jack Flatray is on the way himself. So is
Sheriff Burke," volunteered Alan gloomily.

"Getting right busy, ain't they?" Norris sneered.

Again Lee glanced quickly at Norris. "I reckon, Phil, we better drive that
bunch of sheep down to water right away. I clean forgot them this
mo'ning."

"Sure." The younger man was not so easily shaken. He turned to McKinstra
naturally. "How many of the hold-ups were there?"

"I saw only one, and didn't see him very good. He was a slim fellow in a
black mask."

"You don't say. Were you the driver?"

Alan felt the color suffuse his face. "No, I was the guard."

"Oh, you were the guard."

Alan felt the suave irony that covered this man's amusement, and he
resented it impotently. When Melissy came to his support he was the more
grateful.

"And we all think he did just right in using his common sense, Mr.
Norris," the girl flashed.

"Oh, certainly."

And with that he was gone after her father to help him water the sheep.

"I don't see why those sheep have to be watered right now," she frowned
to Alan. "Dad _did_ water them this morning. I helped him."

Together they went into the store, where Jose was telling his story for
the sixth time to a listening circle of plainsmen.

"And right then he come at you and ree-quested yore whole outfit to poke a
hole in the scenery with yore front feet?" old Dave Ellis asked just as
Melissy entered.

"_Si, Senor._"

"One of MacQueen's Roaring Fork gang did it, I'll bet," Alan contributed
sourly.

"What kind of a lookin' guy was he?" spoke up a dark young man known as
Bob Farnum.

"A big man, _senor_, and looked a ruffian."

"They're always that way until you run 'em down," grinned Ellis. "Never
knew a hold-up wasn't eight foot high and then some--to the fellow at the
wrong end of the gun."

"If you mean to say, Dave Ellis, that I lay down to a bluff----" Alan was
beginning hotly when the old frontiersman interrupted.

"Keep your shirt on, McKinstra. I don't mean to say it. Nobody but a darn
fool makes a gun-play when the cards are stacked that-a-way. Yore bad play
was in reaching for the gun at all."

"Well, Jack Flatray will git him. I'll bet a stack of blues on that,"
contributed a fat ranchman wheezil