The prisoners were brought in--some forty of them, for Old Man Hooper
maintained only the home ranch and all his cow hands as well as his
personal bravos were gathered here. Buck Johnson separated apart seven
of them, and ordered the others into the stables under guard.

"Bad _hombres_, all of them," he observed to Jed Parker. "We'll just
nat'rally ship them across the line very _pronto_. But these seven are
worse than bad _hombres_. We'll have to see about them."

But neither Andreas, Ramon, nor Old Man Hooper himself were among those
present.

"Maybe they slipped out through our guards; but I doubt it," said Buck.
"I believe we've identified that peevish lot by the water troughs."

The firing went on quite briskly for a while; then slackened, and
finally died to an occasioned burst, mainly from our own side. Under our
leader's direction the men fed their horses and made themselves
comfortable. I was summoned to the living quarters to explain on the
spot the events that had gone before. Here we examined more carefully
and in detail the various documents--the extraordinary directions to
Ramon; the list of prospective victims to be offered at the tomb, so to
speak, of Old Man Hooper; and the copy of the agreement between Emory
and Hooper. The latter, as I had surmised, stated in so many words that
it superceded and nullified an old partnership agreement. This started
us on a further search which was at last rewarded by the discovery of
that original partnership. It contained, again as I had surmised, the
not-uncommon clause that in case of the death of one or the other of the
partners without direct heirs the common property should revert to the