Although there was only an hour of daylight left, stars were out with the twilight, and it was by their bright radiance that the three trotted briskly along across the open mesa towards that far spot on the mountain slope which was Los Ranchos. Even before they saw the lights in the windows a pale, brilliant moon had risen over the tops of the craggy mountains to guide them on their way. CHAPTER VI THE HUNT Bad news greeted Raquel when they clumped into the Rancho’s kitchen shortly after midnight. A mountain lion had got Ruth’s calf. Georgie was disconsolate. The thermometer dropped that night to well below freezing, and two weeks of extremely cold weather followed the mountain roundup. Frost lay white each morning, silvering the sage and cactus and sparkling under a brilliant sun that gave no heat. A week after the disappearance of Ruth’s calf, Jami came across the mutilated remains of a white-faced steer up in an arroyo back of the big house. It was the work of a lion by the signs--the hide ripped to ribbons by cat claws. Then two sheep that the Esquibals had been caring for at their place disappeared. Every one wanted to go hunting. “Well, I guess we might as well go after those fellows now while it’s so cold,” Raquel reluctantly agreed. She sent Jami into Los Pasos to bring back the two hounds that her father had loaned in the fall to a friend. That afternoon Raquel and Georgie rode north to a branding cabin that was not used save during the season. A spring in the mountains behind La Boka had been piped down to a circular reservoir, now covered with a thin coating of ice except where the cattle had broken it around the edges. Not far from here they found a fallen heifer, another victim of the wild creatures which disputed their ownership of land and cattle. The torn throat told its own tale. Georgie’s freckled face paled. He rose from where he had knelt at the heifer’s side. “The Lobo of the Magdalena did that. It’s a killer.... But say, Rake”--the boy’s eyes were fairly popping--“that’s not the Lazy L’s cow.” He touched the branded flank of the heifer with the toe of his boot. A large and cruel leaning H marked the animal. Raquel nodded. She stooped and gazed intently at the scar, her hand fondling a velvety ear. “That brand’s about six months old, Tooth. A brand that deep takes just about that long to look like this. Yes, it belongs to us, all right. See that little notch hidden at the bottom of its ear. That was the calf I brought home and raised on the bottle when it got lost from its mother. Remember? And I wanted to mark it, it was so fat and cute. “I thought I knew that heifer some way the minute I saw her. A slick job, whoever covered the Lazy L. They didn’t get away with it, though! But how many _have_ they got away with, I wonder. And who would do a thing like that?” “_Quien sabe!_ I don’t know who’d dare. Gee, if Dad had known this!” “Well, it’s a bad piece of business for somebody.”