"Not a smidgen. The boys got in just before I left. They trailed the hoss-band over a hundred miles an' then lost the trail near Miner Mountain. A rainstorm did that trick, an' they couldn't pick up the trail again nohow." "Swing Tunstall was right. He said if there was a rainstorm round, them rustlers would locate it." "They did." "The outfit ain't quit, has it?" "They're a-goin' out again. Scotty says he won't quit till he finds his hosses." Loudon spent the following week in unobtrusive shadowing of Pete O'Leary. But not once did that young man leave the confines of Paradise Bend. The fellow spent all of his time loafing in the vicinity of the Burr house or playing poker at the Three Card. He may have known that he was being watched. For Loudon's methods were not those of a Pinkerton shadow. When the time came for Loudon to depart, Mrs. Burr followed him out to the corral. "Tom," said she, when his horse was saddled, "Tom, I like you an' Kate. I like yuh both an awful lot. I'd shore enjoy seein' yuh both happy. Forgive her, Tom, an' yuh will be happy. I'm an old woman, but I've seen a lot o' life, an' it's taught me that love is the biggest thing in the world. If yuh got it yuh don't need nothin' else. Don't throw it away. Don't. Now don't forget to remember me to that old reprobate, Scotty Mackenzie, an' tell him me an' Dorothy are comin' out to see him in a couple o' days." The new Flying M cook, a citizen of the Bend, greeted Loudon with fervour. "Thank Gawd yuh've come!" he exclaimed. "That there Scotty is shore the ---- invalid I ever seen! Forty times a day reg'lar he r'ars an' sw'ars 'cause yuh ain't arrove yet, an' forty times a day he does likewise for fear yuh'll come before yore ankle's all right. Yo're the bright apple of his eye, Tom. How yuh done it, I don't see. I can't please his R'yal Highness in a million years." "Oh, it's a cinch when yuh know how," grinned Loudon. "Where's the outfit?" "Most of 'em are out with Telescope. Doubleday an' Swing Tunstall are drivin' a bunch o' hosses over to the north range. Mister Mackenzie is a-settin' up in the office doin' like I said." Loudon went at once to the office. Scotty, propped in an armchair, evinced no sign of the restlessness mentioned by the cook. He shook hands calmly and smiled cheerfully. "Glad to see yuh," he said. "Set down an' be happy. How's the peg? All right, huh? That's good. Me? Oh, I'm pullin' through like a greased fish. I'll be poppin' round jovial an' free in another week or so. About them rustlers, now. I think----" "Say, Scotty," interrupted Loudon, eagerly, "I got a small jag o' news. I dunno what yore plans are, but I'll gamble what I got to say'll make a difference." "Let her flicker." For half an hour Loudon spoke rapidly. At the end of his recital the eyes of Scotty Mackenzie were cold and hard and very bright. "What's yore plan?" he queried.