“Them vigilantes sure did it up brown,” added Andy.  “I was dyin’ to join the band.  But they didn’t ask me.”

“Nor me,” replied Jake, regretfully.  “An’ I can’t understand why, onless it was they was afeared I couldn’t keep a secret.”

“Who is them vigilantes, anyhow?” asked Bill, curiously.

“Wal, I reckon nobody knows.  But I seen a thousand armed men this mornin’.  They sure looked bad.  You ought to have seen them poke the I.W.W.’s with cocked guns.”

“Was any one shot?” queried Andy.

“Not in the daytime.  Nobody killed by this Citizens’ Protective League, as they call themselves.  They just rounded up all the suspicious men an’ herded them on to thet cattle-train an’ carried them off.  It was at night when the vigilantes worked—­masked an’ secret an’ sure bloody.  Jest like the old vigilante days! ...  An’ you can gamble they ain’t through yet.”

“Uncle Sam won’t need to send any soldiers here.”

“Wal, I should smile not.  Thet’d be a disgrace to the Northwest.  It was a bad time fer the I.W.W. to try any tricks on us.”

Jake shook his lean head and his jaw bulged.  He might have been haranguing, cowboy-like, for the benefit of the man they feigned not to notice, but it was plain, nevertheless, that he was angry.

“What gits me wuss ’n them I.W.W.’s is the skunks thet give Uncle Sam the double-cross,” said Andy, with dark face.  “I’ll stand fer any man an’ respect him if he’s aboveboard an’ makes his fight in the open.  But them coyotes thet live off the land an’ pretend to be American when they ain’t—­they make me pisen mad.”

“I heerd the vigilantes has marked men like thet,” observed Bill.

“I’ll give you a hunch, fellers,” replied Jake, grimly.  “By Gawd! the West won’t stand fer traitors!”

All the way to “Many Waters,” where it was possible to talk and be heard, the cowboys continued in like strain.  And not until the driver halted the car before Anderson’s door did they manifest any awareness of Neuman.

“Git out an’ come in,” said Jake to the pallid, sweating rancher.

He led Neuman into the hall and knocked upon Anderson’s study door.  It was opened by Dorn.

“Wal, hyar we are,” announced Jake, and his very nonchalance attested to pride.

Anderson was standing beside his desk.  He started, and his hand flashed back significantly as he sighted his rival and enemy.

“No gun-play, boss, was your orders,” said Jake.  “An’ Neuman ain’t packin’ no gun.”

It was plain that Anderson made a great effort at restraint.  But he failed.  And perhaps the realization that he could not kill this man liberated his passion.  Then the two big ranchers faced each other—­Neuman livid and shaking, Anderson black as a thunder-cloud.

“Neuman, you hatched up a plot with Glidden to kill me,” said Anderson, bitterly.

Neuman, in hoarse, brief answer, denied it.