Pagina 50 de 439

"Don't tear your shirt, amigo," smiled the ranger. "We'll arrive

faster if we don't go off half-cocked. Let's picket the broncs,

amble down to the spring, and smoke a cigarette. We've got to

ride twenty miles for fresh hawsses and these have got to have a

little rest."

They unsaddled and picketed, then strolled to the spring.

"I've been thinking that maybe we have made a mistake. Isn't it

possible the man with Miss Kinney is not Struve?" asked Neill.

"That's easy proved. You saw him this mo'ning." The lieutenant

went down into his pocket once more for a photograph. "Does this

favor the man with Miss Kinney?"

Under the blaze of another match, shielded by the ranger's hands,

Larry looked into the scowling, villainous face he had seen

earlier in the day. There could be no mistaking those leering,

cruel eyes nor the ratlike, shifty look of the face, not to

mention the long scar across it. His heart sank.

"It's the man."