None of you ever seen such a ranch. Why, fellers, Herrick's bought every durn hoss, burro, cow, steer, chicken in the whole country."

"So you said before," returned Lincoln. "I'm sure curious to see this Englisher. Must have more money than brains."

"Hell yes! He hasn't got any sense, accordin' to us Westerners.

But, Lordy! the money he's spent!"

Jim sat down to rest and listen. These riders had accepted him and they were out in the open now, where one might expect frankness.

"Rummy deal--a rich Englishman hirin' men like us to run his outfit," pondered Lincoln, in a puzzled tone. "I don't understand it."

"Wal, who does? I can't, thet's shore. But it's an honest God's fact, an' we're goin' to be so rich pronto thet we'll jest about kill each other."

"More truth than fun in thet, Hank, old boy, an' don't you forget it," rejoined Lincoln. "How do you aim to get rich?"

"Shore, I've no idee. Thet'll all come. I've got the step on Heeseman an' his pards."

"He'll be aimin' at precisely the same deal as you."

"Shore. We'll have to kill Heeseman an' Progar, sooner or later.

I'd like it sooner."

"Humph! Thet ain't goin' to be so easy, Hank."

"Wal, Brad, don't jump your ditches before you come to them," advised Hays, philosophically.

"I don't like the deal," concluded Lincoln, forcibly.

Presently they sat to their meal, and ate almost in silence.

Darkness settled down; the staccato cry of coyotes came on the night wind; the little fire burned down to red coals. Lincoln essayed to replenish it with fresh fuel, but Hays made him desist.

One by one they sought their beds, and Wall was the last. He did not lie awake long.

Dawn found them up and doing. Wall fetched in some of the horses;

Lincoln the others. By sunrise they were on the trail.

It turned out to be a windy day, cold, almost raw, with only a pale sun. Blowing dust and sand shrouded distant landmarks. About noon they passed close to one of the buttes, a huge disintegrated rock, the color of chocolate, and so weathered that it resembled a colossal pipe organ. Not long afterward another loomed up through the dust--a mound with the shape of an elephant. Thereafter outcropping ledges of rock and buttes grew increasingly more abundant, as did the washes and shallow, stony defiles.

The gray, winding wall sheered off more to the north. About mid- afternoon the trail led down through high gravel banks to a wide stream-bed, dry except in the middle of the sandy waste, where a tiny ribbon of water meandered. It was a mile across this flat to the line of green brush.

"This here's the Muddy," announced Hays, for Jim's benefit. "Bad enough when the water's up. But nothin' to the Dirty Devil.

Nothin' atall!"

"What's the Dirty Devil?" asked Jim.

"It's a river an' it's well named, you can gamble on thet. We'll cross it tomorrow sometime."

Next camp was on higher ground above the Muddy, and as it was a protected spot, in the lee of rocks, the riders were not sorry to halt. Wood was fairly plentiful, but there was an entire absence of grass and water. The horses, however, would not suffer, as they had drunk their fill at the river. They were tied up for the night and fed grain.

Hays and Lincoln renewed their argument about the Herrick ranch deal. It proved what Wall had divined--this Brad Lincoln was shrewd, cold, doubtful, and aggressive. Hays was not distinguished for any cleverness. He was merely an honest, unscrupulous robber.

These men were going to clash.