Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/134

 The Man from Bar-20 up the wall of a crumbling butte, and, reaching the top, looked around for his bearings. They were easily found, for Twin Buttes looked too much alike, even from the rear, to be easily mistaken; and they loomed too high to be overlooked. Almost on a direct line with the Twins lay Quigley's cabins, a matter of fifteen miles from him; which he decided was too far. That distance covered twice daily would take up too much time. Returning to the valley he built a fire, had dinner, and, hanging the edible supplies on tree limbs for safety, whistled Pepper to him and departed toward the Twins.

Two hours later he left the horse in a deep draw and crawled up the eastern bank. Crossing a bowlder-strewn plateau he not long afterward wriggled to the edge of Quigley's valley and looked down into it.

The size of the enclosed range amazed him, for it was fully thirteen miles long, eight miles across at its widest, the northern end, and three miles wide at the middle, where massive cliffs jutted far out from each side.

The more he saw of it the better he liked it. The grass was better and thicker than even that in the prized and fought-for valley of the old Bar-20. He judged it to contain about eighty square miles and believed that it could feed two hundred cows to the mile. The main stream, which he named Rustler Creek, flowed through 122