Larkin loosened the pistol in his holster, one of those big, single-action wooden-handled forty-fives that have settled so many unrecorded disputes, and prepared to cover the rear of the herd until it had safely crossed the hogback. Pinte's ears twitched forward. The sound of galloping feet was nearer now. Larkin clapped on spurs and trotted to meet it. Closer and closer it came, a mingled clatter of hoofs. Then suddenly there rang out the frightened bawl of a bewildered calf. The aspects of the situation took on another hue. If these had been cattle stampeded by the shots and shouting on the plain, they would have made a vastly different thundering along the earth. Cattle never ran this way by themselves; therefore the obvious inference was that they were driven. Again, the Bar T punchers had no call to drive cattle at night, particularly this night. Who, then, was driving them? In an instant Larkin's mind had leaped these various steps of reasoning and recalled old Beef Bissell's vehement arraignment of rustlers in the State. The answer was plain. The calves were being driven off the range into concealment by cattle-thieves. Larkin knew that all the sheep had not yet passed the top of the hogback. It was absolutely necessary that their passage be unknown and unobserved. There was but one thing to do. Spurring his horse, he charged toward the oncoming animals, whose dark forms he could now discern a hundred yards away. As he rode, he shouted and drew his revolver, firing into their faces. When at last it seemed that he must come into violent collision with them, they turned, snorting, to the east and made off in the direction of the river. His purpose accomplished, Larkin wheeled Pinte sharply and dug in his spurs, but at that instant two dark forms loomed close, one on each side, and seized the bridle. "Hands up!" said a gruff voice. "You're covered." CHAPTER VI UGLY COMPANY Larkin's revolver was empty, and his hands mechanically went up. The captor on his right relieved him of the useless weapon, and, in a trice, produced a rope, with which he bound the sheepman's arms tightly behind him. With the other end of the rope turned about the pommel of his saddle, he dropped back into the darkness, while his companion rode to a position ahead of Larkin. At a growled word from behind, the little cavalcade advanced, Larkin mystified, uncertain and fuming with impotent rage. Never in his life had he been so needed as he was at that time by Sims and the herdsmen; never in his life had he so ardently desired liberty and freedom of action.