“Not if I send Basford to take her over the Line.”
“Enough!” said Kate, “I’m uneasy about the whole thing—the brushed-out tracks at the mouth of the Pipe——”
“A trifle. And the boys will soon be here. Hark—they’re coming now.”
There was a sound in the rock face, a shout and the rumble of horses’ feet hurrping.
The man and the woman looked that way—to behold Big Basford come boiling from the narrow opening with a string of men behind him. The grey light had given place to the rose of sunrise, and the riders who came so swiftly out of the wall were plainly visible.
“Hell’s fire!” whispered Cattle Kate Cathrew.
Like a Nemesis, Bossick and the ranchers behind him pushed Big Basford down the sloping floor of Rainbow’s Pot.
“A plant!” screamed the latter, “we’re caught! We’re caught!”
A hundred feet away Bossick stopped.
His angry eyes flashed over Arnold and the woman beside him, then scanned the green basin where the peaceful cattle lay.