came an answering nicker, and presently out of the darkness a pony
trotted. The pinto was a sleek and glossy little fellow, beautiful in
action and gentle as a kitten.

The young fellow took the well-shaped head in his arms, fondled the
soft, dainty nose that nuzzled in his pocket for sugar, fed Chiquito a
half-handful of the delicacy in his open palm, and put the pony through
the repertoire of tricks he had taught his pet.

"You wanta shake a leg to-day, old fellow, and throw dust in that
tinhorn's face," he murmured to his four-footed friend, gentling it with
little pats of love and admiration. "Adios, Chiquito. I know you won't
throw off on yore old pal. So long, old pie-eater."

Across the mesa Dave galloped back, swung from the saddle, and made a
bee-line for breakfast. The other men were already busy at this important
business. From the tail of the chuck wagon he took a tin cup and a tin
plate. He helped himself to coffee, soda biscuits, and a strip of steak
just forked from a large kettle of boiling lard. Presently more coffee,
more biscuits, and more steak went the way of the first helping. The
hard-riding life of the desert stimulates a healthy appetite.

The punchers of the D Bar Lazy R were moving a large herd to a new range.
It was made up of several lots bought from smaller outfits that had gone
out of business under the pressure of falling prices, short grass, and
the activity of rustlers. The cattle had been loose-bedded in a gulch
close at hand, the upper end of which was sealed by an impassable cliff.
Many such cañons in the wilder part of the mountains, fenced across the
face to serve as a corral, had been used by rustlers as caches into which
to drift their stolen stock. This one had no doubt more than once played