She stooped and tried to catch a baby trout in her cupped palms, just as she used to try when she was a child. If those four calves were stolen, then there was a "rustler" in the country. And if there were, then no one's stock was safe. The deduction was terribly simple and as exact as the smallest sum in addition. And Billy Louise could not afford to pay toll to a rustler out of her forty-seven head of cattle. The next day she rode early to the Cove and learned some things from Marthy which she had not gleaned from Charlie. She learned that two of the calves were a deep red, except for a wide, white strip on the nose of one and white hind feet on the other; that another was spotted on the hindquarters, and that the fourth was white, with large, red blotches. She had known cattle all her life. She would know these, if she saw them anywhere. She also discovered for herself that they could not have broken out of that pasture, and that the river bank was impassable, because of high, thick bushes and miry mud in the open spaces. She had a fight with Blue over these latter places and demonstrated beyond doubt that they were miry, by getting him in to the knees in spite of his violent objections. They left deep tracks behind them when they got out. The calves had not gone investigating the bank, for there was not a trace anywhere. And the bluff was absolutely unscalable. Billy Louise herself would have felt doubtful of climbing out that way. The gray rim-rock stood straight and high at the top, with never a crevice, so far as she could see. And the gorge was barred, so that it was impossible to go that way without lifting heavy poles out of deep sockets and sliding them to one side. "I've got an idea about a gate here," Charlie confided suddenly. "There won't be any more mysteries like this. I'm going to fix a swinging gate in place of these bars, Miss Louise. I shall have it swing uphill, like this; and I'll have a weight arranged so that it will always close itself, if one is careless enough to ride on and leave it open. I have it all worked out in my alleged brain. I shall do it right away, too. Aunt Marthy is rather nervous about this gorge, now. Every evening she walks up here herself to make sure the bars are closed." "You may as well make up your mind to it," said Billy Louise irrelevantly, in a tone of absolute certainty. "Those calves were driven out of the gorge. That means stolen. You needn't accuse anyone in particular; I don't suppose you could. But they were stolen." Charlie frowned and glanced up speculatively at the bluff's rim. "Oh, your mountain-sheep theory is no good," Billy Louise giggled. "I doubt if a lizard, even, would try to leave the Cove over the bluff." Which certainly was a sweeping statement, when you consider a lizard's habits. "A mountain sheep couldn't, anyway." "They're hummers to climb--"