As he was about to drop to his knees to search the body he started and sprang back, glancing fearfully around as he drew his Colt. "Han’s up!" came the command from the edge of the clearing as a man stepped into sight. "I reckon—" Skinny leaped aside as the other’s gun roared out and fired from his hip; and Sam Bradley plunged across the blanket-covered log and leaves. "There," Skinny soliloquized, moving forward. "I knowed they was coyotes, _both_ of ’em. Knowed it all th’ time." Two days north of Skinny on the bank of Little Wind River a fire was burning itself out, while four men lay on the sand or squatted on their heels and watched it contentedly. "Yes, I got plumb sick of that country," Lanky Smith was saying, "an’ when Buck sent for me to go up an’ help him out, I pulls up, an’ here I am." "I never heard of th’ Bar-20," replied a little, wizened man, whose eyes were so bright they seemed to be on fire. "Did n’t know there was any ranches in that country." "Buck ’s got th’ only one," responded Lanky, packing his pipe. "He’s located on Snake Creek, an’ he ’s got four thousand head. Reckon there ain’t nobody within two hundred mile of him. Lewis said he ’s got a fine range an’ all th’ water he can use; but three men can’t handle all them cows in _that_ country, so I ’m goin’ up." The little man’s eyes seldom left Lanky’s face, and he seemed to be studying the stranger very closely. When Lanky had ridden upon their noon-day camp the little man had not lost a movement that the stranger made and the other two, disappearing quietly, returned a little later and nodded reassuringly to their leader. The wizened leader glanced at one of his companions, but spoke to Lanky. "George, here, said as how they finally got Butch Lynch. You did n’t hear nothin’ about it, did you?" "They was a rumor down on Mesquite range that Butch was got. I heard his gang was wiped out. Well, it had to come sometime—he was carryin’ things with a purty high hand for a long time. But I ’ve done heard that before; more ’n once, too. I reckon Butch is a li’l too slick to get hisself killed." "Ever see him?" asked George carelessly. "Never; an’ don’t want to. If them fellers can’t clean their own range an’ pertect their own cows, I ain’t got no call to edge in." "He ’s only a couple of inches taller ’n Jim," observed the third man, glancing at his leader, "an’ about th’ same build. But he ’s h—l on th’ shoot. I saw him twice, but I was mindin’ my own business." Lanky nodded at the leader. "That ’d make him about as tall as me. Size don’t make no dif’rence no more—King Colt makes ’em look all alike." Jim tossed away his cigarette and arose, stretching and grunting. "I shore ate too much," he complained. "Well, there’s one thing about yore friend’s ranch: he ain’t got no rustlers to fight, so he ain’t as bad off as he might be. I reckon he done named that crick hisself, did n’t he? I never heard tell of it."