good-bye," and thereby I was branded a delicious liar.

"They took me into the bunk house and fed me, all right," said Windy
Bill, "and fed my horse. And next morning that old Mexican Joe of his
just nat'rally up and kicked me off the premises."

"Wonder you didn't shoot him," I exclaimed.

"Oh, he didn't use his foot. But he sort of let me know that the place
was unhealthy to visit more'n once. And somehow I seen he meant it; and
I ain't never had no call to go back."

I mulled over the situation all day, and then could stand it no longer.
On the dark of the evening I rode to within a couple of miles of
Hooper's ranch, tied my horse, and scouted carefully forward afoot. For
one thing I wanted to find out whether the system of high transoms
extended to all the rooms, including that in the left wing: for another
I wanted to determine the "lay of the land" on that blank side of the
house. I found my surmise correct as to the transoms. As to the blank
side of the house, that looked down on a wide, green, moist patch and
the irrigating ditch with its stunted willows. Then painstakingly I went
over every inch of the terrain about the ranch; and might just as well
have investigated the external economy of a mud turtle. Realizing that
nothing was to be gained in this manner, I withdrew to my strategic base
where I rolled down and slept until daylight. Then I saddled and
returned toward the ranch.

I had not ridden two miles, however, before in the boulder-strewn wash
of Arroyo Seco I met Jim Starr, one of our men.