The four pushed their mounts almost to the limit of their strength. At three in the morning they dismounted in a grove of singing pines. The 88 ranch buildings were a bare quarter-mile distant.

They tied their horses and went forward on foot. Their plan was to enter the ranch house and take Blakely prisoner while he slept. It was a sufficiently foolhardy proceeding, for Blakely was known to be a light sleeper. And there might be more than seven men in the bunkhouse. If the scheme miscarried, and Blakely should give the alarm---- But the four men wasted little thought on that contingency.

Silently they approached the dark blots that were the ranch buildings.

Foot by foot they edged along between the two corrals.

At the blacksmith shop they halted. To the right, and fifty or sixty yards away, was the bunkhouse. In front of them stretched the square shape of the ranch house. Loudon sat down and pulled off his boots.

The others followed his example.

"I'm goin' down to the bunkhouse first," Loudon whispered. "I can tell by the snores, maybe, how many we've got to count in."

Loudon slid silently toward the bunkhouse. In ten minutes he was back.

"Not a snore," he whispered. "I listened at each window. There ain't a sound in that bunkhouse. If the boys are gone, then Blakely's gone.

There's only one window open in the ranch house. I didn't hear nothin'

there, either."

Leaving Johnny on guard at the back door, Loudon and the others tiptoed around the ranch house. They leaned their rifles against the wall beside the door and Loudon laid his hand on the latch. Slowly he lifted the latch and slowly, very slowly, so that it would not creak, he pushed the door open. Once inside they halted, nerves a-stretch, and ears straining to catch the slightest sound. But there was no sound.

Loudon knew that there were three rooms, an office, and a wide hall in the ranch house, but where Blakely was in the habit of sleeping he did not know. While Laguerre and Chuck Morgan remained in the hall, Loudon felt his way from room to room.

Still hearing no sound he grew bolder and struck a match. He found himself in the office. In company with the others he visited every room in turn. Each was empty. In one room the flickering matchlight revealed a bed. The blankets were tumbled. An alarm clock hanging on a nail above the bed had stopped at half-past two.

"Blakely left yesterday, all right," said Loudon. "It takes a day an'

a half for them clocks to run down. Guess he must 'a' been at Farewell after all."

"Maybe some o'the boys got him," Chuck said, hopefully.

"No such luck."

The match went out, and Loudon scratched another, intending to light a lamp.

"Put out that light!" came in a hoa.r.s.e whisper from the back door.

"Somebody's a-comin'."

Loudon crushed the match between his fingers and hurried to the back door. Laguerre and Chuck crowded against him.

"Listen!" commanded Johnny Ramsay.

"Sounds like two horses," said Loudon.

"Comin' the way we come," growled Loudon.

The hoof-beats, at first a mere ripple of distant sound, grew louder rapidly.

"If they're comin' here, they'll come in the ranch house, sh.o.r.e," said Loudon. "They're only two, so they must be a couple o' the 88. We'll take 'em alive. Telescope, you an' Chuck take this door, an' Johnny an' I'll take the front. If they come yore way bend yore guns over their heads. Don't shoot till yuh know who they are for sh.o.r.e. It's just possible they may be friends."

Loudon and Johnny Ramsay ran through the hall, brought in the rifles, and closed the front door. Side by side they waited. The door was poorly hung. Through the cracks they could hear quite plainly the drum of the galloping horses' feet. Suddenly a horse neighed shrilly.

"Our hosses in the grove!" breathed Loudon. "I forgot 'em, an'----"

But the approaching hors.e.m.e.n did not halt. As they came closer Loudon heard one call to the other and the latter make a reply, but the words were unintelligible. They were still talking when they pulled up in front of the ranch-house door.

"I tell yuh I don't like that whinnerin'!" one man was insisting, angrily. "Maybe, now----"

"Gittin' scared, huh!" sneered the other. "It's just some o' our hosses strayed. They often go over in that bunch o' pines. You take the hosses down to the corral, Pete, an' change the saddles, an' I'll rustle us some grub an' the cartridges. Skip now!"

The speaker lifted the door latch. The door crashed open. A boot scuffed the doorsill. The heavy barrel of Loudon's six-shooter smashed down across hat and hair with a crunch.

Even as the man dropped, Loudon, taking no chances, flung his arms around the falling body and went down with it. Johnny Ramsay, drawing his own conclusions as to the friendliness of the man with the horses, sprang through the doorway, his six-shooter spitting. In mid-leap he checked and fell flat, his six-shooter flying from his hand. He was up in an instant and feeling about for his gun. Panting and swearing, for in his ears was the tuckle-tuck-tuckle-tuck of a furiously ridden horse, he found his six-shooter at last.

"Deed you heet heem?" called Laguerre from the doorway.

"I did not," replied Johnny. "Leastwise he didn't wait to tell me. If I hadn't tripped over somebody's feet an' lost my gun in the shuffle, I'd have got him all right. He wasn't five yards away. By the time I got hold o' the gun he was over the hills an' far away, so far as. .h.i.ttin' him was concerned. He left the other sport's hoss, though."

Johnny went up to the horse, a big light-coloured animal, and flung its dragging rein over a post near the door. The horse stood quietly, legs spread, breathing heavily.

"Hey!" bawled Loudon. "Somebody gimme a match! I can't find mine, an'

I want to look at Blakely!"

"So eet ees Blakely," said Laguerre. "I deed not know."

"Sh.o.r.e," Loudon said, "I knowed both voices instanter. The other party was that Paradise Bender named Pete O'Leary. Ain't anybody got a match?"

Johnny Ramsay pulled a match out of his hat-band and scratched it. He held the flame above the face of the unconscious man on the floor.

"It's Blakely. No mistake about that," said Loudon in a tone of great satisfaction.

A guttural exclamation from Laguerre drew Loudon's eyes to the half-breed. Laguerre was bending forward, his eyes fixed in a terrible glare on the face of Blakely. Laguerre's lips writhed open. His teeth were bared to the gum. His countenance was a mask of relentless hate.

"Pony George!" almost whispered Laguerre. "At las'!"

The match went out.

"Gimme them matches!" exclaimed Loudon, harshly.

He went into the office, found a lamp and lit it. He carried it into the hall and placed it on a chair. Laguerre had squatted down on his heels. His eyes, now mere slits, were still fixed on Blakely. Johnny Ramsay and Chuck Morgan covertly watched Laguerre. They did not understand. Laguerre's head pivoted suddenly.

"Dat man ees mine," he said, staring at Loudon.

"Of course. Yuh don't need to say nothin' more, Telescope."

"I weel tell why. Dese odders mus' know. My frien's," the swarthy face with the terrible eyes turned toward Chuck and Johnny, "my frien's, long tam ago, ovair eas' on de Sweet.w.a.tair, I know dees man.

She was not call Blakely den. Hees name was Taylor--Pony George, dey call heem. Pony George she keel my wife, my leetle Marie. Feefteen year I have hunt Pony George. Now I have foun' heem. Un I weel keel heem, me."

Johnny and Chuck nodded gravely. The primitive code of the broken lands is bluntly simple. Vengeance was Laguerre's.