love with her each day. Then he thought of her deep friendship for Anderson and his face clouded.

Mason had started out alone this morning and was riding a horse given him by the ranch owner. He had determined to see the Ricker ranch and pay her owners a visit.

“If ever I get in a scrap with Bud it will be over Josephine,” he said aloud to his horse. “Still, he has always used me white, eh, Sport, old boy?”

The horse raised his ears as though in sympathy with his master.

Mason had been covering ground at a good clip while voicing expression to his thoughts. An hour later the dim outline of the Ricker ranch came into view. He intended to make a short stay at the ranch and then make for Trader’s Post. He wanted to send a hurry order home for his car which he had ordered the week before.

Mason slowed his horse down to a walk as he came up to the ranch and was eagerly scanning the premises for signs of life. A moment later he dismounted and tied his horse to a post of a low porch that ran the entire length of the ranch building. About the center of the porch there was a door leading into a spacious room filled with saddles, boots and other cowboy paraphernalia.

He boldly tried the door and found it unlocked.

A spirit of adventure seized him and he flung the door open and entered the room. As he did so, he failed to notice a misshapen creature, who had watched him with bright, gleaming eyes, disappear with lightning rapidity through a door at the end of the building.

The place seemed deserted, but what impressed Mason most was the fact that the boots, spurs and other trappings were richly studded and embossed.

“Hum,” mused Mason softly, “pretty swell outfit for a bunch of low down cattle thieves as Bud seems to think they are.”

He had about made up his mind to make a tour of all the rooms and had started towards a door leading into a hall when he heard a noise behind him.

“Move, and I shoot!” the command was fairly barked at him.

Quickly he raised his hands above his head, glancing over his shoulder as he did so.

Through a hole in the wall a bony hand produced, grasping a long blue-barreled Colt aimed directly at his head. Mason heard his 

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