hundred miles, so that we cattle men won't have half a chance to
graze our cattle," grinned the spokesman of the party.

His companions laughed harshly.

"I reckon," answered another. "We'll have all the cattle men on
both sides of the Rosebud range so stirred up that they will pitch
into that flock like hyenas who haven't had a square meal since snow
fell last. When they break loose there's going to be fun, now I
tell you. That's the time we get busy. We ought to be able to get
a thousand of them anyhow. Before next morning we'll be so far down
toward the Big Horn range that they won't catch us. And besides,
after the cattle men get through killing mutton, a thousand more or
less won't be missed. It'll make a nice bunch to add to our flock.
If we work that a few times we'll have enough to make a shipment
worth while."

"So that's the game is it?" muttered Tad Butler. "Well, they won't
do it if I can help it." Yet be realized how powerless he was at
that moment to defeat their nefarious plans.

Somehow they were going to urge the real cattle men to use
highhanded measures to destroy Mr. Simms's flock. They were going to
scatter them, and then these men were going to make off with all
they could drive away. It did not seem to the listening boy that
such things were possible; yet Mr. Simms was authority for the
statement that such acts were not unknown in this far northern
state.

There were still many points that Tad was not clear on, but he had