One answered him in Mexican while they slipped out and mounted.  They rode away, driving the horses they had chosen.  Unobtrusive horses as to color; bays and browns, mostly, of the commonplace type that would not easily be missed from the herd.  The man on the fence smoked a cigarette and studied the horses milling restlessly below him in the corral.

From the adobe cabin squatting in the moonlight came the shrill, insistent jingling of a bell.  The man looked that way thoughtfully, climbed down and went to the cabin, keeping carefully in the beaten trail.

The door was not locked.  A rawhide thong tied it fast to a staple in the door jamb.  With the bell shrilling its summons inside, the man paused long enough to study the knotting of the thong before he untied it and stepped inside.  He went to the telephone slowly, thoughtfully, his cigarette held between two fingers, his forehead drawn down so that his eyebrows were pinched together.  He hesitated perceptibly before he took down the receiver.  Then he grinned.

“Hello!” His voice was hoarse, slightly muffled.  He grinned again when he caught the mildly querulous tones of Sudden Selmer, sharpened a little by the transmitter.

“Where the dickens have you been?  I’ve been trying all evening to get you,” Sudden complained.

“Huh?  Oh, I just got in.  I been fixing fence over west of here.  Took me till dark—­No, the stock’s all in—­wind had blowed down a couple of them rotten posts—­well, they was rotten enough to sag over, so I had to reset them—­Had to reset them, I said!  Dig new holes!” He turned his face a little away from the transmitter and coughed, then grinned while he listened.

“Oh, nothing—­just a cold I caught—­Don’t amount to anything.  I’m doctoring it.  I always get hoarse when I catch a little cold—­Sure, everything’s all right.  I’m going to ride fence to-morrow—­That so?  It blowed to beat the cars, down here all night—­Why, they’re lookin’ fine—­No, ain’t saw a soul.  I guess they know better than to bother our stock—­All right, Mr. Selmer, I will—­and say!  I might be late in getting in to-morrow, but everything’s fine as silk—­All right—­G’ bye!”

He hung up the receiver before he started to laugh, but once he did start, he laughed all the time he was re-tying the door in the same kind of knot Johnny had used, and all the while he was returning to the corral.

“Fell for it, all right.  Nothing can beat having a cold right handy,” he chuckled when he had turned out the stock, whistled for the sentinel, and mounted his horse.  “Guess I better happen around to-morrow evening.  They won’t be back—­not if they bring it with ’em.”

While he waited for the guard to come in, he eyed the corral and its immediate neighborhood, and afterward inspected the cloud-flecked sky.  “Corral shows a bunch of stock has been penned here,” he muttered.  “But the wind’ll raise before sun-up.  I guess it’ll be all right.”