It was after dark when Skeeter Bill rode away from the Bar D ranchhouse, blankets and clothes tied behind his saddle. He also carried some doughnuts, a tin cup and a canteen of cold water. He refused to say what he intended doing out there, just grinned. He did not ride up to the spring but tied his horse in a mesquite thicket and walked the last two hundred yards in the brush. The brush crowded in fairly close to the spring but to the north was a spread of open country, covered only with knee-high growth. Near the spring was a pile of old posts, left over from the fencing. Skeeter scouted the country fairly well, but it was too dark for him to see any considerable distance. He cut some brush and sat down behind the pile of posts, working in the dark. Skeeter was not an artist, and his creation wouldn’t even have fooled a wary crowd, but from a distance it might be mistaken for a man. The neck and head was a broken piece of fencepost, to which he tied a stick, over which he fitted the old coat. After due deliberation he fastened it into the post-pile, with only the head and shoulders showing above the pile. Then he draped the overalls over the posts, giving the right effect for anyone viewing the spring from the south side. Skeeter did not have light enough to look it over critically. Then he took his blankets back in the mesquite, found an opening, and stretched out for the night, looking up at the stars. “This is Tuesday night,” he said half-aloud, “and Bill’s birthday is Saturday. Maybe I’m seven kinds of a darned fool but I ain’t quittin’ on Bill’s druthers--until I have to quit.” Skeeter Bill’s range training had taught him to awaken at any unusual sound, but he slept right through until the light of a false-dawn painted the hills for a few minutes. It was cold up there in the brush. He watched the real dawn spread slowly across the divide, sending streamers of color onto the high points around the valley. He sat up in his blankets, buckled on his gun-belt and drew in deep breaths of the morning air. Suddenly he jerked to his knees, flinging the blankets aside. From somewhere, fairly close, came the whip-like crack of a rifle. Twice more it blasted, the echoes clattering back from the hills. Skeeter Bill was on his feet, gun in hand, hunched low. Then he went swiftly out along the brush to where he could see the spring and the pile of posts. His dummy was piled up at the foot of the post-pile, the hat six feet away! IV Cautiously, Skeeter lifted his head. The shots had come from the north, and Skeeter caught sight of something moving. It was a man, or men, on horseback. Skeeter’s view was only momentary but Skeeter Bill was not being fooled by anybody. He stayed right there for at least fifteen minutes. There was not a sound. Several cows drifted in from the south and began drinking.