"Here's another one!" called out Dan Anderson as I appeared; and
forthwith they broke into peals of unrighteous laughter. "You're a
little slow; you're number three; Mac was first."

"I thought I heard an elk as I came up," said I, as I sat down beside
the others and tried to look unconcerned, although plainly out of
breath.

"Elk!" snorted McKinney, as he arose and walked to the other edge of
the snowbank. "Here's your elk tracks." McKinney, foreman on
Carrizoso, was an old range-rider, and he was right. Here was the
track, plunging through the snow, and here was a deep hole where an
elk, or something, had digged hurriedly, deeply, and, as it proved,
effectively.

"Elk!" said McKinney again, savagely. "Damn that cow puncher! He took
to his horse, 'course he did, and not one of us thought of ridin'.
Who'd ever think a man would ride up here at all, let alone at night?
Come on, fellers, we might as well go home."

"Well, I'm pleased to have met you, gentlemen," said Anderson, lighting
a philosophic pipe, "and I don't mind walking back with you. It's a
trifle lonesome in the hills after dark. Why didn't you tell me you
were coming up?" He grinned with what seemed to us bad taste.

When we got down across the foot-hills and into the broad white street
of Heart's Desire, we espied a dark figure slowly approaching. It
proved to be Tom Osby, who later declared that he had found himself
unable to sleep. He had things in his pockets. By common consent we
now turned our footsteps across the _arroyo_, toward the cabin where