A long hour passed, filled with the soundful silence of the wilderness. He heard an owl call and call in mournful quaver from far below, another answer. He knew that some hunting animal was abroad in the manzanita to his right, for he caught a thud and rustle, the pitiful, shrill scream of a rabbit. A night bird gave out a sweet, alert note from time to time and an insect drummed in a pine tree. And then he heard, or thought he did, another sound. It was so far off and faint that he could not be sure, and for a time he fancied he might have been mistaken. Then it came again—the crack of hoofs on stone, and once more silence. He held his breath, listening. Once again he heard that cracking of hoofs—and this time he knew them for cloven hoofs. A cattle-brute was coming up the trail toward him. There was nothing in that fact to cause undue excitement—except one thing. Under ordinary conditions that steer would be lying in some snug glade chewing its cud. In no natural case would it be coming up a trail at a smart pace—with a horse behind it! And there _was_ a horse behind it. Selwood heard now distinctly the quieter step of a saddle horse. He leaned forward, gripping his own mount’s nose, and strained his eyes in the illusive half-light. Presently he saw what he knew he would see—a rider, driving one lone steer up the trail to Sky Line. It was too dark to see anything else—who the man was, or what manner of steer he drove, or what horse he rode. And though he waited till the cooler breath of the night warned him of coming day he saw nothing more. He spent half the next day at Cordova, listening, but though several cattlemen came in there was nothing said of a loss among them. But the day after old man Conlan was in and fit for durance. He threw his ragged hat on McKane’s floor and jumped on it, reviling the law and all it stood for. “Two more!” he bellowed with a break of tears in his old voice. “By——! ef this ain’t th’ limit! I only had sixteen left an’ th’ two best out th’ lot come up missin’ this mornin’! Ain’t no trail agin. They’s tracks all over, sure—but th’ other stock is on th’ slope an’ this time there just ain’t _nothin’_!” Barman, from up on Nameless, was at the store and he and McKane tried to calm the old man down, though the cattleman’s own blood was roiled. “It is a damned dirty shame!” he said indignantly, “have you told Selwood?” “Him?” grunted Conlan. “Hell!” “He’s here now,” said McKane, “just getting down.” Price Selwood entered in time to hear the last of the old man’s tirade, to catch the drift of what had happened, and his eyes glowed for a second. He laid a hand on Conlan’s arm. “Jake,” he said, “hold in a little longer.” “Hold hell!” said the other shaking off the hand, “I’ll be ready for the county house in Bement in another three months!” “I don’t think so, Jake,” said the sheriff quietly, “tell me—were those two steers branded?”