tched his sunburnt head. "I don't aim to be noways inquisitive,
Go-Get-'Em, but how come you to wait long enough to take this hawss-thief
captive? I'd 'a' bet my best mule team against a dollar Mex that you'd
have gunned him on sight."

"I'll tell you why, Reb. He had one rifle an' one six-gun. I didn't have
either the one or the other, so I had to borrow his guns before I talked
turkey. By that time I'd changed my mind about bumpin' him off right now.
When Yankie finds out what he's been sayin' he'll do the trick for me."

"You're right he will. Good job, too. I hate a sneak like I do a
side-winder." Reb turned to his prisoner. "Git a move on you, Roush.
I want this job over with. I'm no coyote herder."

Chapter XXXIII

The Round-Up

Dumont had been on the grill for three hours. He had taken refuge in
dogged silence. He had been badgered into lies. He had broken down at
last and told the truth. Sheriff Billie Prince, keen as a hound on the
scent, persistent as a bulldog, peppered the man's defense with a
machine-gun fire of questions. Back of these loomed the shadow of a
long term in the penitentiary.

For Dumont had been caught with his iron hot. The acrid smell of burnt
flesh was still in the air when an angry cattleman and two of his riders
came on the man and the rustled calf. Fortunately for the thief the
sheriff happened to be in the neighborhood. He had rescued the captured
waddy from the hands of the incensed ranchers and brought him straight to
Live-Oaks.

The rustler was frightened. There had been a bad quarter of an hour when
it looked as though he might be the central figure in a lynching. Even
after this danger had been weathered, the outlook was full of gloom. He
had to choose between a long prison sentence and the betrayal of his
comrades. Dumont had no iron in his blood. He dodged and evaded and
bluffed--and at last threw up his hands. If the sheriff would protect him
from the vengeance of the gang, he would give any information wanted
or do anything he was told to do.

The arrival of Reb and his prisoner interrupted the quiz. Prince had
Dumont returned to his cell and took up the new business of Roush and his
story. The sheriff knew he would be blamed for the escape of Clanton and
he thought it wise to have the whole matter opened up before witnesses.
Wallace Snaith and Dad Wrayburn both happened to be in town and Billie
sent the boss mule-skinner to bring them. To these men he turned