owners, and if they don't come forward in due time, they're yours."
"Oh, very well," said Tom, with that little toss of the head, that high and indifferent air, as if he accepted the situation only because it could not be evaded without coming down to the contemptible level of a cad.
They shook hands and parted. Before noon Tom was in the home neighborhood, keeping a sharp lookout for the red-eyed veteran, by whom he desired to spread the news among the homesteaders who had lost in the raid. He did not encounter anybody, however, until passing the home of the lanky neighbor who had been the first to report loss the morning Tom was trailing the thieves.
This man was sitting on the tongue of his useless wagon, which was drawn up in the dooryard of his miserable home, when Tom suddenly rounded a bend in the road, coming from behind a little swell of land, with the horses. The homesteader jumped out of his melancholy brooding, standing dumb with amazement for a moment. Then he let out a whoop that seemed to jar his loose-jointed shack open, releasing a vast number of tow-headed children and an anxious, slatternly flat woman, who came pouring out into the yard.
"He's got 'em! he's got 'em!" the settler yelled, starting in a long lope for the road, where Tom was rounding up the horses to a stop.
The homesteader dashed among the horses without a word, wild-eyed and eager, cutting out the animals which belonged to him. He worked about the business as desperately as if his opportunity hung on seconds, and one blunder would cost him all. He was panting and sweating
