He did not take kindly to farming. In the succeeding years he drifted to more vicious ways and took Wade with him.

That explained Wade Holden’s presence there on this lonely Texas road, a robber, red-handed, already at twenty-two notorious for his quick and deadly gunplay, and marked by the Texas Rangers along with Simm Bell. Wade had grown bitter and hard. He suffered few moments of remorse. Hope had almost died in his breast. He could look back and see how inevitably he had been forced out of honest ways. He had never had a chance. And all there seemed left for him now was to die fighting by and for his chief. Through the long hours of night that sense of loyalty grew to a passion.

They rode on through the long dark hours at a steady trot. They passed isolated ranch houses at intervals and one village where all but watchdogs were wrapped in slumber.

It rained hardest during the dark hour before dawn. Then with the gray break of day the rain let up and there was a prospect of clearing weather. Sunrise found Bell leading his men off the road into a wood where, some distance in, they halted in a grassy glade.

“We’ll rest the hosses and dry off,” said Bell, cheerily, as he dismounted. “That farmer back aways is a friend of mine. We can get grub.”

“Wal, Bell, if it’s all the same to you, we’ll be ridin’ on,” said Smith, a freckled, evil-eyed man.

Bell straightened up but he did not bat an eyelash. He had been prepared.

“Smith, it’s not all the same to me. And who do you mean by we?” he returned, coolly.

“Me an’ Hazlitt hyar. We’re ridin’ on with our share.”

“Who’n hell said anythin’ about your share?” queried Bell, sharply, and deliberately he lifted the heavy package of coin off Smith’s saddle, and then, even more forcefully, repeated the action with Hazlitt. When he turned to Blue, however, that worthy was in the act of dismounting with his treasure. Bell relieved him of it and laid it beside the others on a log. Holden got off his horse and placed his package on the log, too, but apart from the others.

“I kept mine dry,” he observed, and covered it with his coat. This precaution was only a blind. Wade did not want to be hampered if trouble ensued. Manifestly Bell had struck a false note. Smith and Hazlitt looked ugly but uncertain, as they got down on cramped legs. Wade had a covert look at Randall Blue. He was under thirty, a tall man, fair and not bad looking. Wade distrusted his shifty gaze, his ready tongue and smile. Bell watched the three men while he uncinched and threw his saddle. His big black eyes held a sardonic gleam.

“Wal, Bell,” began Smith, presently, “nobody said anythin’ aboot a divvy, but shore thet was understood.”

“I always pay men who work with me,” replied the leader.

“Pay! . .