company--a chapper-own, they say--which ain't in no ways
illuminatin' my think-tank none. Which is a chapper-own?"

"A kind of a moral monitor, Blackburn," grinned Lawler. "Some folks need
them. If you're thinking of getting one----"

"Bah!" Blackburn's eyes were vitriolic with disgust. "I sabe what you
are hintin' at when you gas of morals--which I'm a heap acquainted with
because I ain't got none to speak of. But I'm plumb flabbergasted when
you go to connectin' a battleship with anything that's got a whole lot
to do with morals. Accordin' to my schoolin', a monitor is a thing
which blows the stuffin' out of----"

"A monitor of morals could do that," gravely said Lawler. "In fact,
according to the best authorities, there have been many monitors who
have blown the stuffing out of the reputations of their charges."

Blackburn gulped. He was puzzled, and his eyes were glazed with the
incomprehension which had seized him. Twice again as he watched Lawler's
grave face he gulped. And then he eyed Lawler belligerently.

"I reckon them monitors is eastern. I've never seen one galivantin'
around these parts."

"They're a lot eastern," assented Lawler. "I've never seen one, but I've
read about them in books. And once my mother saw one--she tells me the
East raises them by the hundred."

"That accounts for it," declared Blackburn; "anything which comes from
the East is likely to be a heap shy on hoss sense."

He now squinted at Lawler, watching him keenly.

"Accordin' to report Joe Hamlin ought to go around draggin' one of them
monitors."

Blackburn shrewdly noted the quickening of Lawler's eyes, and the dull
red that stole into his face.

"What do you mean, Blackburn?"

"Davies an' Harris hit town ag'in last night; an' comin' back they run
plumb into Joe Hamlin. He was in the upper end of the box arroyo. He'd
roped an' hog-tied a Circle L cow an' was blottin' our brand out."

"What happened?" Lawler's lips were set in grim lines.

"Nothin'--followin' your orders regardin' the cuss. Davies an' Harris
let him go--after warnin' him. Somethin' ought to be done. It ain't
addin' a heap to the morals of the outfit for the men to know a man can
rustle cattle that promiscuous--an' the boss not battin' an eyewinker.
This is the fourth time he's been caught with the goods--to say nothin'
of the times he's done it without nobody gittin' wise--an' the boys is
beginnin' to ask questions, bein' a heap puzzled because somethin