Tex speculated gloomily on the foolish turn the habits of the wild band had taken. The big stallion at their head must have lost his cunning or else he had met with disaster and a younger leader had taken his place. Silently the men rode through the timber and up the long ridges leading out of the lower valley. They entered the aspen belt and took a trail which ran along the top of a rocky ridge. From that ridge they crossed over to another and finally followed a red-granite cliff wall which led them into a narrow meadow. Towering rims of granite formed a half circle around the meadow with scattered spruce close to the wall on the lower side where the meadow broke off into the lower country. The entrance to the narrow valley was grown over by a stand of young aspen trees. Tex hoped to pick up the trail of the herd in this meadow and follow it from there. He halted his men in the dense cover and scowled across the meadow. At the upper end fed the band of wild horses he sought. They had not moved their feed ground since the boys had first located them. Tex was disgusted with them; they were acting like brood mares in a farm pasture. “The chestnut stud isn’t running that bunch,” he said gruffly. The men nodded agreement and Shorty Spears, horse-breaker for the ranch, spoke up. “Must be an old mare at the head of that herd. This is just the spot an old biddie would pick, grass knee-high, water close in.” Tex nodded. He was studying the band carefully. Finally he gave his orders. “Two of you take the upper side along the wall. Keep in the brush cover until you work your way down close to them. Make clean jobs, no gut shooting or broken legs. Shorty, you and Cal take the lower side along the rim. They won’t break down over that wall. I’ll wait here in the outlet and pick off any that break past you boys. They have to come out this way. Now get going.” The men divided forces and rode away. They were eager to get a bad job done. It would be no sport for them, shooting down a band of mares and colts. The horses were trapped and would be helpless before the repeating rifles. Tex watched them go. He noted grimly that even the wind was against the wild horses. They had no sentinel posted and Tex could spot no stallion among them. The execution should be quick and complete. Midnight fed beside the pinto filly. They had just finished a race around the meadow and were standing in a clump of young spruce and balsam looking down over the lower valleys. The rim at their feet broke off steeply. It was matted with brush; ragged rocks jutted up through the green leaves. The black stallion was nervous and uneasy, though he did not know why. He had a feeling of confinement, similar to that he had felt while he was a prisoner on the meadow below the high mesa. He tossed his head and pawed, snorting impatiently. He was making ready to drive the band out of the closed meadow.