The sheriff grinned.  “That’ll be square enough,” he agreed.  He turned to the men who had come with him.  “You boys cut out them cattle that we looked at, an’ head them toward the Bar X.”  When the men had gone he turned to Sanderson.

“I want you men to know that I’m actin’ under orders.  I don’t know what’s eatin’ Bill Lester—­that ain’t my business.  But when I’m ordered to do anything in my line of duty, why, it’s got to be done.  Your friend has gassed some about a man named Silverthorn bein’ at the bottom of this thing.  Mebbe he is—­I ain’t got no means of knowin’.  It appears to me that Bill ain’t got no call to hog your whole bunch, though, for I’ve never knowed Bill to raise more than fifteen hundred head of cattle in one season.  I’m takin’ a chance on two hundred coverin’ his claims.”

It was after noon when the sheriff and his men started westward with the suspected stock.

Carter, fuming with rage, watched them go.  Then he turned to Sanderson.

“Hell an’ damnation!  We’ll hit Devil’s Hole about dusk—­if we start now.  What’ll we do?”

“Start,” said Sanderson.  “If we hang around here for another day they’ll trump up another fake charge an’ clean us out!”

The country through which they were forced to travel during the afternoon was broken and rugged, and the progress of the herd was slow.  However, according to Carter, they made good time considering the drawbacks they encountered, and late afternoon found them within a few miles of the dreaded Devil’s Hole.

Carter counseled a halt until morning, and Sanderson yielded.  After a camping ground had been selected Carter and Sanderson rode ahead to inspect Devil’s Hole.

The place was well named.  It was a natural basin between some jagged and impassable foothills, running between a gorge at each end.  Both ends of the basin constricted sharply at the gorges, resembling a wide, narrow-necked bottle.

A thin stream of water flowed on each side of a hard, rock trail that ran straight through the center of the basin, and on both sides of the trail a black bog of quicksand spread, covering the entire surface of the land.

Halfway through the basin, Sanderson halted Streak on the narrow trail and looked at the treacherous sand.

“I’ve seen quicksand, an’ quicksand,” he declared, “but this is the bogs of the lot.  If any steers get bogged down in there they wouldn’t be able to bellow more than once before they’d sink out of sight!”

“There’s a heap of them in there,” remarked Carter.

It was an eery place, and the echo of their voices resounded with ever-increasing faintness.

“I never go through this damned hell-hole without gettin’ the creeps,” declared Carter.  “An’ I’ve got nerve enough, too, usually.  There’s somethin’ about the place that suggests the cattle an’ men it’s swallowed.

“Do you see that flat section there?” he indicated a spot about a hundred yards wide and half as long, which looked like hard, baked earth, black and dead.  “That’s where that herd I was tellin’ you about went in.  The next morning you couldn’t see hide nor hair of them.