They returned to the ranch house, Loudon wondering greatly as to the ident.i.ty of the mysterious philanthropist. In Cow Land a stolen horse is not returned except under compulsion. While they were at dinner the cook stuck his head through the doorway.

"Bunch o' riders a-comin' from the north," he announced, "an' they're a-comin' some swift."

"Scotty!" exclaimed Loudon, and ran to the window.

"It may be the sheriff," said Jack Richie, hastening to provide himself with a Winchester.

"It's Scotty," Loudon said. "I can tell him a mile off. He's wearin'

the same shirt, red sleeve an' all."

The hors.e.m.e.n, some thirty men, rode up at an easy lope. Besides Scotty, Loudon recognized Doubleday, Johnny Ramsay, Chuck Morgan, Swing Tunstall, Giant Morton, Ragsdale, and many others.

"He's brought the whole ranch an' half the Bend," chuckled Loudon, and then swore gently, because he suddenly remembered that there was no evidence against Blakely.

With thirty men the 88 could be shown the error of its ways most effectually. And now the thirty could not be used. What a waste of good material!

The band of hors.e.m.e.n, bawling greetings to the group in the doorway, jingled to a halt. Loudon stepped forward and shook Scotty's proffered hand.

"Yuh've sure done fine," said Scotty. "Yuh've filled out just what I said 'bout opportunity with a big O. I ain't forgettin' it, neither.

Besides Rudd now, did yuh run across anythin' touchin' Sam Blakely?"

"Not a thing," Loudon replied, "an it's no use a-goin' out to the 88 lookin' for Rudd. He's sloped. My fault he got away, too."

"That's tough, but it don't matter a heap. Yuh found the hosses an'

three o' the thieves, anyway."

"Yeah, but they ain't enough. We'd ought to get 'em all, an' as far's I can see there ain't no chance o' gettin' 'em all."

"Don't yuh care. What yuh've done suits me. I'm satisfied."

"I ain't," said Loudon, "but I s'pose I've got to be. It makes me sick! Lot o' work gone for nothin'. We grabbed the 88 range-boss on the off-chance he'd chatter, but he won't say a word. He's tied up in Jack Richie's storeroom right now."

"Blakely's range-boss, huh? Well, yuh can't hang him without proof, Tom."

"I know that. Got to turn him loose, o' course. Did yuh see anythin'

o' Block or Blakely or that gang when yuh come through Farewell?"

"We didn't strike Farewell. We rode here the shortest way.

Why--what's the matter?"

For Loudon had ripped out an amazed oath.

"Yore rope!" exclaimed Loudon. "Where did yuh get that rope?"

"Oh, Doubleday found it down by the little corral the mornin' after him an' the boys rode in from the Bend--after them hosses was stole."

"Why didn't yuh tell me about it then? That rope was all I needed.

Say, Johnny, djever see this rope before?"

Loudon held up the end of the rope. The holdfast was missing, and the end had been lapped with many turns of whip-cord. Johnny squinted at the rope's end. Jack Richie and the others crowded in.

"Yeah," said Johnny Ramsay, "now I think of it, you an' me was in Mike Flynn's store in Farewell when Sam Blakely bought him that rope with the whip-cord on the end. That was the day you bought a green necktie.

Sh.o.r.e, I remember. Blakely he asked Mike what that whip-cord was, an'

Mike called it whippin'."

"That's what he did," declared Loudon. "I noticed this whippin' jigger special, an' I can swear to it on a stack o' Bibles a mile high. It's the same rope all right enough."

Scotty observed that he would be consigned to everlasting d.a.m.nation.

Ropes, he had supposed, were all alike.

"I knowed that rope must 'a' belonged to one o' the rustlers," said Scotty, "but it was such a little thing that I'd forgot all about it by the time you got back to the ranch, Tom. Blakely's rope! It's sh.o.r.e amazin'."

"It sort o' settles the cat-hop, don't it?" said Loudon.

"Kind o'," Scotty said, his frosty blue eyes gleaming. "We'll wander over to the 88 right away. I guess now we'll leave Marvin tied up yet awhile. We'll attend to him later. Can yuh give us fresh hosses, Jack?"

"Can I?" exclaimed Jack Richie. "Watch me. I guess me an' a few o'

the boys will ride along with yuh. Just to see fair play like."

"Say, Scotty," Loudon said, while the fresh horses were being roped, "I hope Pete O'Leary didn't see you an' the bunch leavin' the Bend."

"He didn't," replied Scotty. "O'Leary ain't with us no more--No, not that way. He's alive yet so far as I know. But he pulled his freight some sudden 'bout two weeks ago. Dunno why."

"Maybe we'll see his smilin' face again pretty soon," Loudon observed, significantly.

"Then here's hopin' it'll be in bad company," said Scotty Mackenzie.

An hour later the band, now numbering forty-two men, started for the 88 ranch. They rode northwest, intending to pa.s.s through Farewell, for it was quite possible that Brown Jug and the gray had been taken into town.

As they neared the town a rattle of shots came down the wind. With one accord the forty-two drove the spurs into their mounts.

At the top of the slight rise above the little town they halted. The windows of Bill Lainey's hotel and Piney Jackson's blacksmith shop were banked in drifting smoke through which red tongues of flame flashed at intervals. From the cover of boulders, wagon-bodies, the hotel corral, and the Happy Heart Saloon, rule-working citizens were pouring lead into the two places. Farther up the street several Winchesters in the Blue Pigeon Store were replying to the fire from the opposite houses and from a barn in the rear of the store.

"Sheriff Block an' his outfit are lockin' horns with some friends o'

mine, I guess," observed Loudon.

"That ain't no way for a sheriff to act," said Scotty. "Let's go down an' tell him so. Friends o' Tom's, boys."

Loudon was already galloping down the slope. In his wake scattered hoof-beats became a thuttering drum. Men whooping and yelling, wild-eyed horses straining every muscle, the charge swept down upon the besiegers of Lainey's Hotel and Jackson's blacksmith shop.

The sheriff's friends broke like a covey of quail. The rifles in the hotel and blacksmith shop chattered like mad. Loudon headed toward the hotel corral to whose shelter two men had retreated. But there was no one there when he reached it.

He rode past the corral and galloped along the rear of the buildings fronting on the street. Twice he was shot at, one bullet nicking his horse's hip. But he contrived to reach the other end of the town unwounded, raced across the street, and dismounted behind the sheriff's corral. His feet had barely touched the ground when Johnny Ramsay, Laguerre, and Chuck Morgan joined him.

"Yuh idjit!" cried Johnny. "Don't yuh know no better'n that? Don't yuh suppose they can hit yuh at twenty yards? Yuh wasn't that far away from the backs of them houses. Ain't yuh got no sense at all?"

"Well, they didn't hit me, an' I notice three other idjits didn't have no better sense. Duck!"