"Whoever is at the head of the Whipple gang possesses more than the usual share of brains, courage, and luck. Keep your eye peeled, and good fortune to you." This letter had been read to the boys one night in camp, and all were instructed to look out for strangers on the ranch and to inform themselves of the business of such. One night Carl started from the sign camp to ride north to meet the rider from sign camp No. 2, which lay nearer the mountains. The camp in which Bud and Carl were stationed was camp No. 1. The distance between the camps was about six miles, so that each rider had to go about three miles to meet. The night was clear and cold, and the air fairly sparkled with the frost in the brilliant white moonlight. It was a glorious night, and Carl, in a leather coat lined with fleece, and with a fur cap upon his head, and his feet in thick felts, started away from the camp on his ride. There was no wind, but the temperature was very low. To the north the Sweet Grass Mountains loomed, a black mass against the sky, while all about the world was carpeted with snow. Carl had not progressed more than a mile from his camp when he saw a dark object against the snow some distance in front of him. At first he thought it might be a bush or a rock, so still it was in the moonlight. But he could not remember of ever having seen either a rock or a bush in that part of the range. Then he wondered if he was late at the meeting place, and that the other line rider had got tired of waiting for him, and had ridden forward upon his line to meet him. This stimulated him to greater speed, and he pricked up his pony. But as he got nearer the black blot on the snow there seemed to be something unusual about it, and he unconsciously slowed his animal down to a walk. At last he got within hailing distance, and saw that it was a man on horseback that he had been approaching. The man on night duty at the second sign camp was a cow-puncher named Follansbee, a short, reckless, yet amiable fellow, whom Carl knew well. The rider who was awaiting him was an unusually large man, and bestrode an enormous horse. The two were as if they had been carved from ebony, as they stood silent and absolutely still, outlined sharply against the dazzlingly white background. Something inside of Carl began to sink as he went on, slower and slower, his hand gripping the reins tightly, and holding back on them. "Vot it is?" he was saying over and over to himself. "Vot it is? Dot is not Billy Follansbee. Dot man vould make dree times of Follansbee, nit?" Cold fear was slowly stealing over Carl, and he wanted in his heart to turn and ride the other way. But something seemed to draw him forward, and, try as he would, he could not bring himself to turn back. The man on the black horse could not be a member of the Long Tom force, for Carl knew every one of them well, as a fellow will who has camped with them for months on a cattle drive.