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 to home ranch of the cattle outfits, recruiting his force for the assault upon the Spout. Here a man and there another, all known to him for their courage from beforetime. Hard riders, dead shots, die-hards; these were the men he culled from among the clan's best. Wherever he went his word to foremen and cow-punchers alike was: "It 's a clean-up now or we all go under."

Grave foremen, knowing the trend of the country's recent events against them and, particularly, the disastrous results of the hotheads' foray against the mob in town, permitted Original his pick of their men; if he cared to stand sponsor for this extra-legal expedient in the face of the law's failure to give protection against the Spout gang, they professed themselves with him to the finish.

So it came about that near midnight one night when the Two Moons' events lay seven days back, a cavalcade of phantoms moved under the stars south from the Circle Y home ranch, place of rendezvous, in the direction of Sioux Pass and Teapot Spout beyond. No road was followed, for Original shunned roads when he was playing his game; smash through the untracked expanse of the divides the way