Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/213

 Beulah lifted two heavy weights off'n his mind. I'm one and you 're the other. O' course, he 'll start the boys out after us to square himself with Tighe and Meldrum. He's got to do that. They 're sure going to be busy bees down in the Huerfano hive. The Rutherford boys are going to do a lot of night-riding for quite some time. But I expect Hal won't give them orders to bring us in dead or alive. There is no premium on our pelts."

Roy spent a nervous half-hour before his friend would let him mount again—and he showed it. The shrewd eyes of the old cattleman appraised him. Already he guessed some of the secrets of this young man's heart.

Dave swung to the left into the hills so as to get away from the beaten trails after they had crossed the pass. He rode slowly, with a careful eye upon his companion. Frequently he stopped to rest in spite of Roy's protests.

Late in the afternoon they came to a little mountain ranch owned by a nester who had punched cattle for Dave in the old days. Now he was doing a profitable business himself in other men's calves. He had started with a branding-iron and a flexible conscience. He still had both of them, together with a nice