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HE strand of Nearing's life hung only by a shred. Dan Gustin and Fred Grubb, who had come hot-riding with the cattlemen, helped Barrett carry him to his bed. One pair of hands could do as much as a hundred to stay the parting of this almost severed thread; Barrett saw this at a glance. He waited no longer than to give Manuel some hurried instructions, when he mounted and rode with the cattlemen in what promised to be the greatest roundup of rustlers that ever took place on that range.

So it was that after thirty hours in the saddle the three friends had rounded back to Eagle Rock camp. The posse comitatus was still sweeping the range in search of Findlay.

Worthy Glass, alone of the number who had worked under Findlay's direction in robbing not only the Diamond Tail, but the herds of adjoining ranches, the cattlemen had taken alive. He was lame from a bullet wound in the heel, result of the noisy fight a few days before in Bonita. They hung him to a piñon pine barely tall enough to clear his feet from the ground.

Three other members of Findlay's crew, all of whom had drawn wages as herdsmen on the Diamond Tail, the cattlemen shot from their saddles as they fled. But Findlay they did not find. The cunning rascal