sun-tanned face perfectly
modelled. The pose of the head and figure would have delighted a
sculptor.

There was a vigor, an unspoken hostility, in the gaze of both men.

"Mo'nin", Mr. Deputy Sheriff, one said; and the other, "Same to you, Mr.
Norris."

"You're on the job quick," sneered the cattle detective.

"The quicker the sooner, I expect."

"And by night you'll have Mr. Hold-up roped and hog-tied?"

"Not so you could notice it. Are you a sheep-herder these days, Mr.
Norris?"

The gentle irony of this was not lost on its object, for in the West a
herder of sheep is the next remove from a dumb animal.

"No, I'm riding for the Quarter Circle K Bar outfit. This is the first
time I ever took the dust of a sheep in my life. I did it to oblige Mr.
Lee."

"Oh! To oblige Mr. Lee?"

"He wanted to water them, and his herder wasn't here."

"Must 'a' been wanting water mighty bad, I reckon," commented Jack
amiably.

"You bet! Lee feels better satisfied now he's watered them."

"I don't doubt it."

Norris changed the subject. "You must have burnt the wind getting here. I
didn't expect to see you for some hours."

"I happened to be down at Yeager's ranch, and one of the boys got me on
the line from Mesa."

"Picked up any clues yet?" asked the other carelessly, yet always with
that hint of a sneer; and innocently Flatray answered, "They seem to be
right seldom."

"Didn't know but you'd happened on the fellow's trail."

"I guess I'm as much at sea as you are," was the equivocal answer.

Lee came over from the stable, still wearing spurs and gauntlets.

"Howdy, Jack!" he nodded, not quite so much at his ease as usual. "Got
hyer on the jump, didn't you?"

"I kept movin'."

"This shorely beats hell, don't it?" Lee glanced around, selected a smooth
boulder, and fired his discharge of tobacco juice at it true to the inch.
"Reminds me of the old days. You boys ain't old enough to recall them, but
stage hold-ups were right numerous then."

Blandly the deputy looked from one to the other. "I don't suppose either
of you gentlemen happen to have been down and looked over the ground where
the hold-up was? The tracks were right cut up before I got there."

This center shot silenced Lee for an instant, but Norris was on the spot
with smiling ease.

"No, Mr. Lee and I have been hunting strays on the mesa. We didn't hear
about it till a few minutes ago. We're at your service, though, Mr.
Sheriff, to join any pos