“Fat chance we got,” admitted Dave.  “Unless they build a fire like we done.  Say, I’d a heap rather be sleepin’ here than by that niggerhead blaze to-night.  They might creep up and try to gun us.”

Before they had been in the saddle an hour next day the trail of the thieves was lost.  The pursuers spent till sunset trying to pick it up again.  The third day was wasted in aimless drifting among the defiles of the mountains.

“No use, Bob,” said his friend while they were cooking supper.  “They’ve made their getaway.  Might as well drift back to Malapi, don’t you reckon?”

“Looks like.  We’re only wastin’ our time here.”

Long before day broke they started.

The canons below were filled with mist as they rode down out of the mountains toward the crystal dawn that already flooded the plain.  The court-house clock at Malapi said the time was midnight when the dust-covered men and horses drew into the town.

The tired men slept till noon.  At the Delmonico Restaurant they found Buck Byington and Steve Russell.  The trail herd had been driven in an hour before.

“How’s old Alkali?” asked Dave of his friend Buck, thumping him on the back.

“Jes’ tolable,” answered the old-timer equably, making great play with knife and fork.  “A man or a hawss don’t either one amount to much after they onct been stove up.  Since that bronc piled me at Willow Creek I been mighty stiff, you might say.”

“Dug’s payin’ off to-day, boys,” Russell told them.  “You’ll find him round to the Boston Emporium.”

The foreman settled first with Hart, after which he, turned to the page in his pocket notebook that held the account of Sanders.

“You’ve drew one month’s pay.  That leaves you three months, less the week you’ve fooled away after the pinto.”

“C’rect,” admitted Dave.

“I’ll dock you seven and a half for that.  Three times thirty’s ninety.  Take seven and a half from that leaves eighty-two fifty.”

“Hold on!” objected Dave.  “My pay’s thirty-five a month.”

“First I knew of it,” said the foreman, eyes bleak and harsh.  “Thirty’s what you’re gettin’.”

“I came in as top hand at thirty-five.”

“You did not,” denied Doble flatly.

The young man flushed.  “You can’t run that on me, Dug.  I’ll not stand for it.”

“Eighty-two fifty is what you get,” answered the other dogmatically.  “You can take it or go to hell.”

He began to sort out a number of small checks with which to pay the puncher.  At that time the currency of the country consisted largely of cattlemen’s checks which passed from hand to hand till they were grimy with dirt.  Often these were not cashed for months later.

“We’ll see what the old man says about that,” retorted Dave hotly.  It was in his mind to say that he did not intend to be robbed by both the Doble brothers, but he wisely repressed the impulse.  Dug would as soon fight as eat, and the young rider knew he would not have a chance in the world against him.