“You’re comin’ in mighty late,” he growled, “Didn’t you get the signal?”

Buck managed to meet the searching eyes.

“I was doin’ better work for you by stayin’ around the house,” he said.

“How d’you mean?”

“I stayed there to pick up things you might want to know.  It wasn’t easy.  The boys are beginnin’ to suspect me.”

“The cowpunchers is gettin’ so thick around those parts,” broke in Purvis, “that Buck wouldn’t even let me go back to his house with him to get my gun.”

The keen eyes of Silent never left the face of Daniels.

“Don’t you know that Gus Morris gives us all the news we need, Buck?”

Rhinehart and Jordan, who were chatting together, stopped to listen.  Buck smiled easily.

“I don’t no ways doubt that Morris tells you all he knows,” he said, “but the pint is that he don’t know everything.”

“How’s that?”

“The rangers is beginnin’ to look sidewise an’ whisper when Morris is around.  He’s played his game with us too long, an’ the boys are startin’ to think.  Thinkin’ is always dangerous.”

“You seem to have been doin’ some tall thinkin’ yourself,” said Silent drily; “you guess the cowpunchers are goin’ on our trail on their own hook?”

“There ain’t no doubt of it.”

“Where’d you hear it?”

“Young Seaton.”

“He’s one of them?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll remember him.  By the way, I see you got a little token of Whistlin’ Dan on your arm.”

He pointed to the bandage on Buck’s right forearm.

“It ain’t nothin’,” said Buck, shrugging his shoulders.  “The cuts are all healin’ up.  The arm’s as good as ever now.”

“Anyway,” said Silent, “you got somethin’ comin’ to you for the play you made agin that devil.”

He reached into his pocket, drew out several twenty dollar gold pieces (money was never scarce with a lone rider) and passed them to Buck.  The latter received the coin gingerly, hesitated, and then returned it to the hand of the chief.

“What the hell’s the matter?” snarled the big outlaw.  “Ain’t it enough?”

“I don’t want no money till I earn it,” said Buck.

“Life’s gettin’ too peaceful for you, eh?” grinned Silent.

“Speakin’ of peace,” chimed in Purvis, with a liberal wink at the rest of the gang, “Buck allows he’s the boy who c’n bring the dove o’ the same into this camp.  He says he knows the way to bring the girl over there to see reason.”

Buck followed the direction of Purvis’s eyes and saw Kate sitting on a rock at a little distance from the shanty in which she lived with her father.  She made a pitiful figure, her chin cupped in her hand, and her eyes staring fixedly down the valley.  He was recalled from her by the general laughter of the outlaws.

“You fellers laugh,” he said complacently, “because you don’t know no more about women than a cow knows about pictures.”