PRIMITIVE INSTINCTS Shorty and a dozen Circle L men--among them Blackburn and the three others who had been wounded in the fight with the rustlers on the plains the previous spring--had been waiting long in a gully at a distance of a mile or more from the Hamlin cabin.

Shortly after dark they had filed into the gully, having come directly from the Circle L.
Hours before, they had got off their horses to stretch their legs, and to wait.

And now they had grown impatient.

It was cold--even in the gulley where the low moaning, biting wind did not reach them--and they knew they could have no fire.
"Hell!" exclaimed one man, intolerantly; "I reckon she's a whizzer!" "Looks a heap like it," agreed Shorty.

"Seems, if Hamlin couldn't get him headed this way--like he said he would--he ought to let us know." "You reckon Hamlin's runnin' straight, now ?" inquired Blackburn.
"Straight as a die!" declared Shorty.