goes as she stands," said Bud, after a moment's thought.
"You help me and I'll help you. Otherwise you won't get a word out of me,
and you can do whatever you like."

"You're under arrest," snapped Bissell. "Give me your gun!" and he covered
Bud with a single swift motion of his hand.

The younger man did as commanded and rose.

"Now go into that room; you're a prisoner," ordered Bissell.

CHAPTER XII

JULIET ASSERTS HERSELF

Now that the owner of the Bar T ranch had succeeded again in a match of
wits with Larkin, he put sheep out of his mind and turned his attention to
the more-immediate danger of rustlers. It had been a matter of a couple of
years since the last determined attempt of the cowmen to oust these
poachers by force of arms, and Bissell thought that the time was ripe for
another and, if possible, final expedition.

With Larkin in his power, he had no doubt that the necessary information
could be procured from him in one way or another, and, after talking
matters over with Stelton, dispatched cowboys at top speed to the ranches
in his district, asking that the owners and as many men as they could
spare should come at once to a conference at the Bar T.

Having got them there, it was his intention to sweat Larkin for names and
descriptions, and then let him go. Should the sheepman refuse all
information, then his case could be acted upon by the members of the
association without any further delay.

All these plans Larkin learned from Juliet and her mother, who looked
after most of his wants. The latter, good woman, quite flustered at having
what she termed a "regular boarder," became rather fond of the patient
young man from the East who never failed to listen attentively to her
narrative of the famous trip to St. Paul.

The regular boarder, for his part, could not but sympathize with this
homely, hard-working, lonely woman. One rarely connected Martha Bissell
with old Beef Bissell except in an impersonal way, as one would have
connected the corral, or the barn, or the brand. In fact, the cowman
seemed hardly cognizant of her existence, long since having transferred
all the affections his hard life had left him to the daughter he
worshiped.

But Martha, as is so often the case with women who grow old slaving for
their husbands, had not changed in her devotion to Bissell since the proud
day they had eloped on one horse and been married by a "sky pilot" in the
nearest cow town.

Mrs. Bissel