“Kind is the word, Dave.  Honest, I hate to put myself under obligations to you like this.  If I hadn’t seen with my own eyes how you was feeling the need of them health exercises, I couldn’t let you force your bronc on me.  But this little walk will do you a lot of good.  It ain’t far.  My horse is up there in the pines.”

“What are you going to do with me?” growled the defeated man over his shoulder.

“Do with you?” The voice of Fox registered amiable surprise.  “Why, I am going to ask you to go up to the horse ranch with me so that the boys can thank you proper for digging up the gold.”

Directly in front of them a spur of the range jutted out to meet the brown foothills.  Back of this, forty miles as the crow flies, nestled a mountain park surrounded by peaks.  In it was the Rutherford horse ranch.  Few men traveled to it, and these by little-used trails.  Of those who frequented them, some were night riders.  They carried a price on their heads, fugitives from localities where the arm of the law reached more surely.

Through the dry brittle grass the man on horseback followed Dingwell to the scant pines where his cowpony was tethered.  Fox dismounted and stood over his captive while the latter transferred the gunnysack and its contents to the other saddle.  Never for an instant did the little spy let the other man close enough to pounce upon him.  Even though Dingwell was cowed, Chet proposed to play it safe.  Not till he was in the saddle himself did he let his prisoner mount.

Instantly Dave’s cowpony went into the air.

“Whoa, you Teddy!  What’s the matter with you?” cried the owner of the horse angrily.  “Quit your two-stepping, can’t you?”

The animal had been gentle enough all day, but now a devil of unrest seemed to have entered it.  The sound of trampling hoofs thudded on the hard, sun-baked earth as the bronco came down like a pile-driver, camel-backed, with legs stiff and unjointed.  Skyward it flung itself again, whirled in the air, and jarred down at an angle.  Wildly flapped the arms of the cattleman.  The quirt, wrong end to, danced up and down clutched in his flying fist.  Each moment it looked as if Mr. Dingwell would take the dust.

The fat stomach of Fox shook with mirth.  “Go it, you buckaroo,” he shouted.  “You got him pulling leather.  Sunfish, you pie-faced cayuse.”

The horse in its lunges pounded closer.  Fox backed away, momentarily alarmed.  “Here ——­ you, hold your brute off.  It’ll be on top of me in a minute,” he screamed.

Apparently Dingwell had lost all control of the bucker.  Somehow he still stuck to the saddle, by luck rather than skill it appeared.  His arms, working like windmills, went up as Teddy shot into the air again.  The hump-backed weaver came down close to the other horse.  At the same instant Dingwell’s loose arm grew rigid and the loaded end of the quirt dropped on the head of Fox.