his conversation to the girl.
“What’s the matter, Tex, have they been kicking up any trouble?” she queried in an anxious voice.
“Don’t exactly know,” he snapped out, “they have been acting mighty queer since them two punchers joined our outfit. Joe gave me orders to keep watch of them.”
Tex was a tall lanky cowboy and extremely nervous. He had a peculiar habit of pulling his belt up to the last notch and letting it out again while talking. Mason sized him up as a hard man to handle at close quarters.
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“I know who you mean, Tex,” the girl said, “Powers and Carlo.”
He nodded grimly.
“Never mind, Tex. I guess Bud can take care of them. You ride in with us, we will tire Jack out with all our troubles.”
“I reckon I could take care of them if I get half a chance,” declared Tex with a grunt.
He had hitched his belt up until it seemed to Mason that his waist was small as a bean pole, started ahead, riding his horse like one born to the saddle.
The girl rode close to Mason, keeping up an easy conversation. He was surprised at her knowledge of all things in general.
“Some day,” she was saying, “we will ride out to the boundary line and I will show you the Ricker ranch. It is a fine place and they have as much range as Daddy has. They have a girl working for them, too. She is Spanish and a beauty, that is, if you like a brunette.” Josephine was half laughing, and watching him out of the corner of her eyes.
“I can tell better after I have seen her,” he replied, evasively.
CHAPTER III – MASON MEETS THE SHERIFF
They had arrived at the bunk-house and Tex was talking to a man in a dusty khaki suit. The girl saw him and with a bound was out of the saddle and shaking hands with him. Mason knew that this man was Bud Anderson whom the girl had talked so much about.
Tex had gone on ahead to the corral. Mason paused, and was slowly stroking his horse’s mane when Josephine suddenly turned and motioned to him.
“Tex tells me the Ricker gang are acting suspicious,” he overheard her saying in a strained voice as he rode up.
The man in the dusty khaki suit muttered something under his breath. Josephine was plainly ill at ease.
“Mr. Mason, I want to make you acquainted with Bud Anderson, our sheriff,” she said in a low voice.
Mason shook hands and winced. Anderson had a grip of steel. He was built on the lines of an athlete with powerful shoulders and an easy carriage that denoted quickness of action. He had sharp, piercing gray eyes that seemed to read one’s innermost thought. Standing close on to six feet, he was a magnificent specimen of manhood.
“Mr. Mason, you have come at just the right time if you like excitement,” he said, looking the Easterner over sharply.
“That’s my middle name,” returned Mason easily.
Anderson nodded approval.
“We are going to have some stormy times around these parts,” he declared. “I understand that Miss Josephine has told you about some of our bad neighbors, the Ricker outfit.
“Well,” he went on, “I just discovered today that four more men joined forces with them, and I took the trouble to look up their names. They are the same bunch I rounded up in that shooting scrape five years ago,” he concluded.
“Oh, I remember,” the girl cried in evident distress, “they wrote you from prison that they would get you when their term was up.”
They had turned their horses into the corral and were walking slowly to the house. Anderson shut up like a clam and refused to say anything further on the subject. Mason figured it was on account of the nervousness of the girl. That night Anderson told Mason all the ins and outs of the affair.
The trouble had occurred in a small town called Atwater, situated a few miles from Trader’s Post. Anderson having business to attend to there had stumbled on to the case shortly after it happened.
An old retired silver miner living alone in a cabin had been set upon and robbed by four men. He was found bound and gagged, with a bullet wound in his shoulder.
Anderson took the trail and followed it untiringly for a week until he landed his men. After being convicted and sentenced to five years in prison they had friends write the sheriff a letter swearing vengeance after their term expired.
Two weeks passed by and nothing of importance had occurred in the actions of the Ricker faction to verify the suspicions of Tex. Mason took long rides each day and got so he could keep up with the best riders. His face had taken on a deep tan, his wind was good and his muscles were like iron.
“If I felt any better I couldn’t stand it, I’d be in the hospital,” he declared one day to the ranch owner, in answer to a query as to his health.
His thoughts often turned to home and at times he had to fight hard to overcome a fierce longing to chuck up the whole thing and return East to his old haunts and habits.
“But I won’t,” he gritted to himself, “I told Dad I’d be game, and I’ll stick. When I get that racing car of mine out here I’ll make the natives gasp.”
Then he remembered he had promised the girl he would teach her how to drive, and his thoughts grew tender, for he admitted to himself that he was growing in love with her each day. Then he thought of her deep friendship for Anderson and his face clouded.
Mason had started out alone this morning and was riding a horse given him by the ranch owner. He had determined to see the Ricker ranch and pay her owners a visit.
“If ever I get in a scrap with Bud it will be over Josephine,” he said aloud to his horse. “Still, he has always used me white, eh, Sport, old boy?”
The horse raised his ears as though in sympathy with his master.
Mason had been covering ground at a good clip while voicing expression to his thoughts. An hour later the dim outline of the Ricker ranch came into view. He intended to make a short stay at the ranch and then make for Trader’s Post. He wanted to send a hurry order home for his car which he had ordered the week before.
Mason slowed his horse down to a walk as he came up to the ranch and was eagerly scanning the premises for signs of life. A moment later he dismounted and tied his horse to a post of a low porch that ran the entire length of the ranch building. About the center of the porch there was a door leading into a spacious room filled with saddles, boots and other cowboy paraphernalia.
He boldly tried the door and found it unlocked.
A spirit of adventure seized him and he flung the door open and entered the room. As he did so, he failed to notice a misshapen creature, who had watched him with bright, gleaming eyes, disappear with lightning rapidity through a door at the end of the building.
The place seemed deserted, but what impressed Mason most was the fact that the boots, spurs and other trappings were richly studded and embossed.
“Hum,” mused Mason softly, “pretty swell outfit for a bunch
