"Forty mile" gasped and sat up. The bottle took his eye, and his hand took the bottle. Putting it back empty he slowly arose; and when last seen he was trying to walk on both sides of the street at once, still chanting his lay. Wolf stirred, tried to get up and, falling, rolled over. "'Oot 'ell out ah th'," he muttered. "No dah 'an." He desisted, since he could not pronounce labials, and tried his arms and legs. They responded somewhat but there was great uncertainty about them. Brazos wiped his eyes, picked up the bottle, looked at it and then around at the crowd, and arose. "Come on, boys; give me a hand. In another hour he'll be petrified. After which, I'm takin' a drink--two of 'em--_three_ of 'em! I needs it bad." The cronies picked Buffalo off the wheel. "Give us a hand, ol' kidnapper," ordered Reb. "We'll lug him into Pete's. Come on--git a-holt, all as can find room." A procession formed, with a line of dogs acting as skirmishers, and tramped to Pete Wiggins' Highbank hotel and bar, into which all but the small boys and dogs disappeared. And a stranger entering Highbank later that night would have carried away a very unfavorable impression about the sobriety of its citizens. And had he seen the innocent and unassuming cause of it all he would have marveled how a man could get so drunk, and live. And for a day or two Wolf did not draw a sober breath, but staggered, when he was able to walk, from place to place, muttering dire threats and drinking steadily while his money lasted. There is no telling where a periodical drinker will stop when once he gets started--and he had been started on more than a pint of brandy. CHAPTER XIV ENOUGH IS SUFFICIENT The following morning Johnny rode toward the northwest corner of the Bar H, the hilly, wooded section which had been presided over by Wolf Forbes. On his ride from the Bar H bunkhouse to the Triangle he had seen numerous unbranded cattle and wondered what he would find on the difficult section over which Wolf was wont to hold jealous guard. Riding to the west of the town he then turned and went south, passing behind the Doc's cabin, and parallel with the over-mountain trail. Reaching Clear River he followed it onto Double X range and then let Pepper pick her way over the mountain, and soon came to his objective, where he found large numbers of cattle, with an unusually high percentage of mavericks among them. "Pepper," he said, alert for signs of Bar H riders, "th' SV has lost a lot of cows--an' folks can't make cows. So if it's goin' to make up its losses, it will have to do it with cows that are livin' this very minute. Now, it ain't reasonable to go on a ranch an' round up a lot of unbranded cattle, 'specially if it ain't willin' for 'em to be rounded up. On th' other hand, there ain't no harm in ridin' around an' sizin' things up. We want to find out where th' mavericks are, an' get some idea of how many there are of 'em.