"Yes."

"Can we ride up, or do we have to take shank's mare?"

"Neither."

"Well, we want some water after that ride," replied Nevada.

"Plenty of it below. Nobody asked you to take that ride. What do you want, anyhow?"

"Why, when Frisco said you was out here we thought we'd drop in on you an' pay you a little visit."

"You have paid us a little visit. Call again next summer."

"Running many cows?" asked Nevada.

"Nope; educating coyotes. Didn't see none, did you?"

Nevada exchanged a few words with his companion and then looked up again. "I reckon you need us, Shaw. Eight more men means twice as many cows; an' we can all fight a little if th' ranches get busy out here."

"We're crowded now. Better water up an' hit th' back trail. It's hard riding in th' dark."

"We didn't come out here for a drink," replied Nevada. "We came out to help you rustle, which same we'll do. I tell you that you need us, man!"

"When I need you I'll send for you. Adios."

"You ain't going to let us come up?"

"Not a little bit. Pull yore stakes an' hit th' back trail. Adios!"

"Well, we'll hang around to-night an' talk it over again to-morrow. Mebby you'll change yore mind. So long," and the two wheeled and disappeared into the chaparrals, Nevada chuckling. "I didn't spring that little joker, Chet, because it's a good card to play last. When we tell him that we won't let nobody come down off'n th' mesa it'll be after we can't do nothing else. No use making him mad."

Up on the mesa Shaw wheeled, scowling. "I knowed that fool would fire off something big! Why can't he get drunk out here, where it's all right?"

"That Nevada is a shore bad proposition," Clausen remarked.

"So'm I!" snapped Shaw. "He can't come up, an' pursooant to that idee I reckon you an' Hall better arrange to watch th' trail to-night."

He walked away and paced slowly along the edge of the wall, studying every yard of it. He had done this thing before and had decided that no man sat a saddle who could scale the sheer hundred feet of rock which dropped so straight below him. But somehow he felt oppressed, and the sinking sun threw into bold relief the furrows of his weather-beaten, leathery face and showed the trouble marks which sat above his eyes. At one part of the wall he stopped and peered over, marshalling imaginative forces in attack after attack against it. But at the end he smiled and moved on—that was the weakest point in his defence, but he would consider himself fortunate if he should find no weaker defence in future conflicts. As he returned to the hut he glanced at the lookout rock and saw Manuel in his characteristic pose, unmoving, silent, watchful.

"I'm getting as bad as Cavalry and his desert," he grumbled. "Still, they can't lick us while we stay up here."