The man he had called boss looked every inch a leader.  He rode with the loose seat and the straight back of the Westerner to the saddle born.  Just now he was looking back with impassive, reddened eyes at the approaching figure.

“Hold on, Tom!  Don’t shoot!  It’s Brad,” he decided.  “And I wonder what in Mexico he is doing here.”

The leader of the outlaws was soon to learn.  Irwin told the story of the strategy that had changed him from jailer to prisoner and of the way he had later freed himself from the rope that bound him.

Healy unloaded his sentiments with an emphasis that did the subject justice.  Nevertheless he could not see that their plans were seriously affected.

“It’s a leetle premature, but his getaway doesn’t cut any ice.  What we want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of business before his friends can say Jack Robinson.  The story now is that he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while we tried to run down the other waddies.  Understand, boys?”

They did, and admired the more the versatility of a leader who could make plans on the spur of the moment to meet any emergency.

“We’ll push right on, boys.  Once we get through the pass it will trouble anybody to find us.  Before mo’ning you’ll be across the line.”

“And you, Brill?”

“I’m going back to settle accounts for good and all with Mr. Keller,” answered Healy grimly between set teeth.  “I’ve got a notion about him.  I believe he’s a spy.”

Just before Point o’ Rocks a defile runs into the Mimbres Pass at right angles.  The leaders of the cattle, pushed forward by the pressure from behind, stopped for a moment, and stood bawling at the junction.  A rider spurred forward to keep them from attempting the gulch.  Suddenly he dragged his pony to its haunches, so quickly did he stop it.  For a clear voice had called down a warning as if from the heavens: 

“You can’t go this way!  The Pass is closed!”

The rider looked up in amazement, and beheld a man standing on the ledge above with a rifle resting easily across his forearm.

“By Heaven, it’s Keller!” the rustler muttered.

He wheeled as on a half dollar, pushed his way back along the edge of the wall past the cattle, and shouted to his chief: 

“We’re trapped, Brill!”

None of the outlaws needed that notification.  Five pair of eyes had lifted to the ledge upon which Keller stood.  The shock of the surprise paralyzed them for an instant.  For it occurred to none of the five that this man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a posse sufficient to overpower them.  He had not the manner of a man taking a desperate chance.  The situation was as dramatic as life and death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee at the breakfast table.