“Don’t let that bother you,” broke in the Texan with the same evenness of tone. “You’re a damned liar!”

With a bound the man was upon him and Tex saw a blinding flash of light, and the next moment he was scrambling from the ground.  After that the fight waxed fast and furious, each man giving and receiving blows that landed with a force that jarred and rocked.  Then, the Texan landed heavily upon the point of his opponent’s chin and the latter sank limp to the floor of the coulee.  For a full minute Tex stood looking down at his victim.

“Curt can scrap like the devil.  I’m sure glad he didn’t force no gun play, I’d have hated to hurt him.”  He recovered the flask from the ground where the other had dropped it, and forced some whiskey between his lips.  Presently the man opened his eyes.

“Feelin’ better?” asked the Texan as Curt blinked up at him.

“Um-hum.  My head aches some.”

“Mine, too.”

“You got a couple of black eyes, an’ your lip is swol up.”

“One of yours is turnin’ black.”

Curt regained his feet and walked slowly toward his horse.  “Well, I’ll be goin’.  So long.”

“So long,” answered the Texan.  He, too, swung into the saddle and each rode upon his way.

CHAPTER XVI

BACK IN CAMP

From their place of concealment high upon the edge of Antelope Butte, Alice Marcum and Endicott watched the movements of the three horsemen with absorbing interest.  They saw the Texan circle to the south-eastward and swing north to intercept the trail of the unknown rider.  They watched Bat, with Indian cunning, creep to his place of concealment at the edge of the coulee.  They saw the riders disperse, the unknown to head toward the mountains at a gallop, and the Texan to turn his horse southward and ride slowly into the bad lands.  And they watched Bat recover his own horse from behind a rock pinnacle and follow the Texan, always keeping out of sight in parallel coulees until both were swallowed up in the amethyst haze of the bad lands.

For an hour they remained in their lookout, pointing out to each other some new wonder of the landscape—­a wind-carved pinnacle, the heliographic flashing of the mica, or some new combination in the ever-changing splendour of colours.

“Whew!  But it’s hot, and I’m thirsty.  And besides it’s lunch time.”  Alice rose, and with Endicott following, made her way to the camp.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she breathed, as they ate their luncheon.  “This life in the open—­the pure clean air—­the magnificent world all spread out before you, beckoning you on, and on, and on.  It makes a person strong with just the feel of living—­the joy of it.  Just think, Winthrop, of being able to eat left-over biscuits and cold bacon and enjoy it!”

Endicott smiled:  “Haven’t I improved enough, yet, for ’Win’?—­Tex thinks so.”