Bert Wilson in the Rockies

by J. W. Duffield

"It's about them derned rustlers," said Sandy, with his usual directness coming straight to the point. "I'm afraid they're gettin' away with a good many of our beeves."

Mr. Melton's brows met in a puzzled frown.

"What makes you think so?" he asked.

"A heap of things," was the reply. "In the first place, the boys have found a lot of motherless calves galloping around and bleating for their mas. Of course, we always look for a few of those, but lately the number's been beyond all reason. Then, too, there's been quite a bunch of ornery fellers that the boys has caught sight of hangin' round where they didn't seem to have no business to be. Of course, that doesn't prove anything against them, and aside from givin' them a pretty sharp lookin' over, we couldn't do nothin' just on suspicion."

He took another bite from his plug of tobacco and hitched his chair a little closer.

"But yesterday," he went on, "Buck was riding herd up in the north section, and he saw a place leadin' up a gully where the ground was trampled down in a way that made it look almost as if there had been a stampede. He could see that a big drove had passed through there and that it must have been goin' in an almighty hurry. He thought at first they might have got scared of a grizzly or somethin', but if that had 'a' been so, some one of them would 'a' been caught and pulled down and there wasn't any sign of anything like that. Then he looked a little closer at the trail and he could see the track of hosses. Somebody was drivin' that herd.

"He come in a flyin' with the report, but it was after midnight and I didn't want to wake you up.

"But there's one thing more," he added, "that makes me dead sure. Chip meandered in from town last night, a little the worse for wear. He'd been celebratin' some and lookin' upon the likker when it was red, and he was so far gone that I guess he'd have slept somewhere on the road if his broncho hadn't had more sense than him and brought him home. He was too soused to know his name, and he didn't need no urgin' to tumble into his bunk and sleep it off. He's got an awful head this mornin', too, but when he heard Buck talkin' at breakfast about what he seen, he called to mind somethin' that one of his pals that works on the Bar Y Ranch off toward the east told him about, when he was a boozin' with him last night.

"It seems that this feller was comin' back from a round-up to his ranch the other day, and he saw the body of a steer, a little off to the right. He rode over to look at it, and, lookin' close, saw that the first brand had been burned over by another one. Of course, he knows most of the brands in this section of the country, and after he studied it over a spell, he knew for sure that the first brand was ours. Knew it by the little curlicue in the top corner of the O. The second brand had been put on kinder careless, in a hurry, as if the fellers that did it wanted to mosey along right quick. Then, too, he could see that the steer had died from bein' overdriven."

Mr. Melton rose and paced the floor in growing anger as he pondered the situation.