Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/44

 The Man from Bar-20 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 32