CHAPTER IV. KATE USES HER QUIRT

 Red-headed Bob Cullison finished making the diamond hitch and proudly called his cousin Kate to inspect the packhorse.

"You never saw the hitch thrown better, sis," he bragged, boy-like."Uncle Luck says I do it well as he can."

"It's fine, Bob," his cousin agreed, with the proper enthusiasm in her dark eyes."You'll have to teach me how to do it one of these days."

She was in a khaki riding skirt, and she pulled herself to the saddle of her own horse. From this position she gave him final instructions before leaving."Stay around the house, Bob. Dad will call the ranch up this morning probably, and I want you to be where you can hear the 'phone ring. Tell him about that white-faced heifer, and to be sure to match the goods I gave him. You'll find dinner set out for you on the dining-room table."

It had been on Wednesday morning that Luck Cullison disappeared from the face of the earth. Before twenty-four hours the gossip was being whispered in the most distant cañons of Papago County. The riders of the Circle C knew it, but none of them had yet told either Bob or Kate.

Now it was Friday morning and Kate was beginning to wonder why her father did not call her up. Could it be that Soapy Stone was pulling off his train robbery at Tin Cup and her father so busy that he could not take time to ride to a telephone station? She did not like to leave the ranch just now, even for a few hours, but other business called her