“How?”

“See those two perpendicular lines drawn through the S, making the brand Circle Dollar-mark.  That’s a most ingenious thing.  It has been done with a running iron.  The fellow who stole our cattle has just changed it by running a curved hot iron through the S.”

“Yer shore right,” said Bud.  “That Circle Dollar brand hez been registered somewhere.  It’s up to us ter find out who registered it, an’ we’ve got ther thief.  I’ll skip out fer ther hosses an’ ther boys.  I reckon we kin git in here by ridin’ across ther backbone o’ ther hills.”

“All right, get back as soon as you can, and we’ll wait for you in the cave.”

Bud and the boys were back within half an hour, having found a pass into the valley through the hills which inclosed it.

“It’s as plain as the face of the sun to me,” said Ted, when they were mounted and were riding toward the cattle.  “Shan Rhue would have had those cattle over the border in a day or two, had he not been so unwise as to have abducted Stella.  It’s up to us now to get that bunch back to the herd.”

It did not take the boys long to get the bunch together, and Ted and Stella rode out to the front of it to point it down the valley, while the other boys started back to the rear to drive up.

Suddenly they heard yells in the rear, accompanied by pistol shots and the cracking of quirts.  In an instant the herd was up with distended eyeballs and lifted tails.  The poison of fear was in them.

Looking back, Ted saw several men riding toward the herd at a terrific pace.  At the head of the band rode Shan Rhue and Sol Flatbush.

Then a remarkable thing happened:  Every man of them produced a red blanket.  They dashed among the cattle waving the blankets in the faces of the now terrified cattle.

“Look out for trouble,” shouted Ted, for he saw at once the intention of Shan Rhue.  It was to stampede the herd.

The effort was immediately successful, for the terrified animals, with a deafening roar that expressed abject fear, started forward on a gallop, with a front as resistless as the prow of a battleship.

Stella was on the side of the herd opposite Ted.

She heard his warning cry, and then looked back at the herd.  If she stayed where she was, there was no escape from death, for by her side was the sheer wall of the valley.  There was only one way to safety, to ride across to the side of Ted.

She gave one look, then started.

Stella rode quartering the path of the stampede, and would have made it in safety had it not been for a prairie-dog hole, into which her pony’s foot went.  Magpie went down.  The thundering host of frantic cattle was upon her when she felt herself caught in mid-air.

The thought of death was still ringing in her head, and everything swam before her eyes.

“You’re all right!  Stick close!” It was the reassuring voice of Ted, who, at the imminent risk of his own life, had ridden out and plucked her from the jaws of death.