"This is terrible," said Ted. "If this keeps up we might as well shoot all the cattle and let them lie out here on the prairie the prey to the wolves. We will never get them back to Moon Valley." Stella looked at him with an expression of consternation on her face. "These cows and steers have been hamstrung," said Ted, with a tone of suppressed rage in his voice. "Any man who would do a trick like that ought to be shot down in his tracks like a mad dog." "Hamstrung! I don't understand." "Some inhuman brute has ridden up behind these crippled animals, and with a sharp knife has cut the tendons or leaders behind the hoofs, or, rather, in the ankles, laming them and preventing them from being able to follow a drive. Where would we be in the spring if any large portion of our beasts were so maimed?" "What a brutal thing to do!" exclaimed Stella, in indignation. "Hello, what's that?" Ted rose in his stirrups, standing and shading his eyes with his hand against the glare of the setting sun on the snow. With the other hand he was pointing off toward the east, where the cattle were milling uneasily. "Something wrong over there," said Stella. They rode slowly in that direction to see what was disturbing the cattle. As they went, Ted was looking for other hamstrung beasts. "By Jove! this is getting worse and more of it," he exclaimed. "See there! That steer has had the tendons of his leg cut to-day. The wound is fresh. It has hardly stopped bleeding. I wonder----" But before he had finished the sentence he applied the quirt to his pony and was dashing through the herd, with Stella close behind. He had seen something strange and out of the way in the milling herd, and while he thought he knew what it was he could hardly believe that it could be true. As he rode he drew his revolver, and broke it to see that its chambers were filled. Ted's face was pale and stern, and Stella saw at a glance that he was terribly angry, and had the look in it that she had observed there several times when he had seen animals being used with cruelty. As he dashed into the milling herd he gave a cry of rage. At the same moment a man sprang to an upright position in the midst of the cattle, and gave a cry of surprise. Over his shoulders hung the fresh hide of a cow, with the skin of the head and the horns protruding above his head. He gave one swift glance at Ted, then threw the hide to the ground and set out at a run through the plunging beasts. Ted was hampered by the cattle getting in his way, and was not making much progress, but he was beating the horned beasts aside with his quirt. It was possible even yet that the man who was running from him would escape, and this was what Ted was trying with all his might to prevent. Ted knew why the man was among the cattle protected from them by his disguise of the cow's hide. He had been hamstringing them by the wholesale. In one day the inhuman brute could destroy for range use a whole herd.