When he left that corral, he smiled. Before he had ridden very far up the bluff, he stopped, looked down at the long-suffering cattle, and smiled again sardonically. One could read their brands easily from where he sat on his horse. They were not blotched; they were very distinct. But they were not Y6s within that corral. There were other brands which might be made of a Y6 monogram, by the judicious addition of a mark here and a mark there. "There, damn yuh: chew on that awhile!" he apostrophized the absent three. He turned away and rode back once more toward home. Rattler turned naturally into the trail which ran up the creek to the ranch, but Ward immediately turned him out of it. "We aren't going to overlook any bets, old-timer," he said grimly and crossed the creek at a point where it was too rocky to leave any hoof-prints behind them. He rode up the lower point of the ridge beyond and followed the crest of it on the side away from the valley. When he reached a point nearly opposite his cabin, he dismounted, unbuckled his spurs, and slipped their chains over the saddle-horn. Then he went forward afoot to reconnoitre. He was careful to avoid rock or gravelly patches and to walk always on the soft grass which muffled his steps. In this wise he made his way to the top of the ridge, where he could look down upon the cabin and stable and corrals and see also the creek trail for a good quarter of a mile. The little valley lay quiet. His team fed undisturbed by the creek not far from the corral, which reassured Ward more than anything. Still, he waited until he had made reasonably sure that the bluff held no watcher concealed before he went back to where Rattler waited patiently. "I guess they didn't plan to stir things up till they got those critters planted where they wanted them," he mused, while he rode down the bluff to his cabin. "But when they visit that bunch of stock again, I reckon things will begin to tighten!" He was wary of exposing himself too much to view from the bluff while he did his chores that night, and he kept Rattler in the stable. Also, he slept very little, and before daybreak he was up and away. He had a rolled army blanket tied behind the saddle, a sack of grub and a frying-pan and a bucket for coffee. But he did not go any farther than the wolf-den, and he spent a couple of hours removing as well as he could any suspicious traces of having dug anything more than wolf pups from the bank on the ledge. CHAPTER XVI "I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT AND HANG YOU"