in hand to answer your letter of recent date. Pete paid Red the 8 dollars to even up for the pants, but nobody paid me for the shirt, ask him why he took the best one. William, Junior, hates tobacco. We was scared hed die. He swears most suspicious like Johnny Nelson. I hid the gun in the storeroom. It cost me $12 damages the first week, besides a calf. Can you use Pete Wilson? I'll pay ½ his wages the first 6 months. I'd ruther have boils than him. He's worse since Johnny left. Don't let Johnny come north again, and God have mercy on your soul. He's easy worth $70, if you are in trouble. If you ain't in trouble he'll get you there. Excuse pensil. Yours truly, Wm. Cassidy, Senior. P.S. His old job is waiting for him and he can have the shirt. It must be near wore out anyhow. Tell him it only costs 2 cents to write me a letter, but I bet hell freezes before I get one. William, Junior, raised the devil when he missed Johnny. Yes, he worked on the Bar-20. If he sends the kid a shotgun, I'll come down and bust his neck. Excuse pensil."
Johnny looked steadily out of the door, ashamed to let Logan see his face, for homesickness is no respecter of age. He gulped and felt like a sick calf. Logan smiled at him through the gloom and chuckled, and at the sound the puncher stiffened and turned around with a fine attempt at indifference.
The foreman nodded at the letter. "Keep it if you wants. They must be a purty fine bunch, them fellers. I never knowed any of 'em, but I've heard a lot about 'em. 'Youbet' Somes used to drop in here once in a while, an' he knowed 'em all. I ain't seen Youbet for quite a spell now."
Johnny managed to relax his throat. "Finest outfit that ever wore pants," he blurted. "Youbet's dead. Went out fightin' seven sheep-herders in a saloon, but he got three of 'em. Hoppy met up with two of th' others th' next summer an' had words with 'em. Th' other two are still livin', I reckon." He thought for a moment and growled: "It's th' wimmin that done it. You wouldn't believe how that crowd has changed! D—n it, why can't a man keep his friends?"
The foreman puffed slowly and made no answer beyond a grunt of understanding. Johnny folded the letter carefully and put it in his pocket. "What's th' cow business comin' to, anyhow?" he demanded. "Wimmin, railroads, towns, sheep, wire—" he despaired of words and glared at the inoffensive corral.
"An' rustlers," added Logan.
"They're only an incident," retorted Johnny. "They can be licked, like a disease; but th' others—oh, what's th' use!"
"Yo're right," replied Logan; "but it's the rustlers that have got me worried. I ain't thinkin' about th' others very much, yet."
Johnny turned like a flash. He wanted action, action that would take his thoughts into other channels. The times were out of joint and he wanted something upon which to vent his spleen. He had been waiting for that word to come from Logan, waiting for days. And he had a score of his own to pay, as well.
"Rustlers!" he exulted. "I knowed it! I've knowed it for a week, an' I'm tired of ridin' around like a cussed fool. I know th' job I want! What about 'em?"
Logan closed the door by a push of his foot, refilled and lit his pipe, and for two hours the only light the room knew was the soft glow of the pipe and the firey ends of the puncher's cigarettes, while Logan unfolded his troubles to eager ears. The cook sang in the kitchen as he wrestled his dishes and pans, and then the noise died out. Laughter and words and the thumping of knuckles on a card table came from the bunkroom, and grew silent. A gray coyote slid around the corral, sniffing suspiciously, and at some faint noise faded into the twilight, and from a distant rise howled mournfully at the moon. From a little pond in the corral came the deep-throated warning of the frogs, endless, insistent, untiring: "Go 'round! Go 'round! Knee deep! Knee deep! Go 'round! Go 'round! Go 'round!"
The soft murmur of voices in the foreman's room suddenly ceased, and a chair scraped over the sandy floor. The door creaked a protest as it swung slowly inward and a gray shape suddenly took form against the darkness of the room, paused on the threshold and then Logan stepped out into the moonlight and knocked his pipe against his boot heel. A second figure emerged and joined him, tossing away a cigarette.
The foreman yawned and shook his head. "I didn't know how to get 'em, Nelson," he said again. "I wasn't satisfied to stop th' rustlin'. I wanted to wipe 'em out an' get back my cows; but I didn't have men enough to go about it right, an' that cussed Barrier spoiled every plan."
"Yes," said the puncher. "But it's funny that none of th' boys, watchin' nights, never got a sign of them fellers. They must be slick. Well, all right; there'll have to be another plan tried, an' that'll be my job. I told you that I found traces of lead over near Twin Buttes? Well, I'm goin' prospectin', an' try to earn that seventy dollars a month. Any time you see a green bush lyin' at th' foot of th' Barrier, just north of Little Canyon, keep th' boys from ridin' near there that same night. I may have some business there an' I shore don't want to be shot at when I can't shoot back. It's too cussed bad Hoppy an' Red are married."
Logan laughed: "Then don't you make that mistake some day! But what about that feller Pete Wilson that Cassidy wants to get rid of?"
"Don't you worry about me gettin' married!" snorted Johnny. "I saw too much of it. An' as for Pete, he's too happy wallerin' in his misery. Anyhow, he wouldn't leave Hoppy an' th' boys; an' they wouldn't let him go. You couldn't drag him off the Tin Cup with a rope. Then we've settled it, huh? I'm to leave you tomorrow, with hard words?"
"Hard words ain't necessary. I know every man that works for me an' they'll stick, an' keep their mouths shut. Now, I warn you again: I wouldn't give a dollar, Mex., for yore life if you go through with your scheme. An' it'll be more dangerous because you look like me, an' have worked for me. You can give it up right now an' not lose anythin' in my opinion. Think it over tonight."
Johnny laughed and shook his head.
"Well," said the foreman, "I'm lettin' you into a bad game, with th' cards stacked against you; but I'll come in after you when you say th' word; an' th' outfit'll be at my back."
"I know that," smiled Johnny. "I'll be under a handicap, keepin' under cover an' not doin' any shootin'; but If I make a gun-play they'll begin to do some figgerin'. Gosh, I'm sleepy. Reckon I'll hunt my bunk. Good night."
"No gun-play," growled Logan. "You know what I want. How many they are, where they round up my cows, an' when they will be makin' a raid, so I can get 'em red-handed. We'll do the fightin'. Good night."
They shook hands and parted, Johnny entering the house, Logan wandering out to the corral, where he sat on a stump for an hour or more and slowly smoked his pipe. When he finally arose he found that it was out, and cold, much to his surprise.
"Go 'round! Go 'round!" said the pond. "Better go 'round! Go 'round!"
Logan turned and sighed with relief at a problem solved. "Yo're a right smart frog, Big Mouth," he grinned. "'Go 'round' is th' medicine; an' I've got th' doctor to shove it down their throats! There's a roundup due in th' Twin Buttes, an' it's started now."
CHAPTER IV
A FEINT
Pop Hayes sighed, raised his head and watched the door as hoof-beats outside ceased abruptly.
"Dearly Beloved!" said an indignant voice. "If you tries any more of yore tricks I'll gentle you with th' butt of a six-gun, you barrel-bellied cow! Oh, that's it, huh? I savvy. You yearns for that shade. Go to it, Pepper."
"'Dearly Beloved'!" snorted Pop in fine disgust. "You'd think it was a weddin'
