rd. These
bolstered Shorty's growing opinion that the man had deliberately fired
the chaparral from a spirit of revenge.

Shorty was an outlaw and a bad man. He had killed, and might at any time
kill again. To save the Jackpot from destruction he would not have made a
turn of the hand. But Shorty was a cattleman. He had been brought up in
the saddle and had known the whine of the lariat and the dust of the drag
drive all his days. Every man has his code. Three things stood out in
that of Shorty. He was loyal to the hand that paid him, he stood by his
pals, and he believed in and after his own fashion loved cattle and the
life of which they were the central fact. To destroy the range feed
wantonly was a crime so nefarious that he could not believe Doble guilty
of it. And yet--

He could not let the matter lie in doubt. He left the tendejon and rode
to Steelman's house. Before entering he examined carefully both of his
long-barreled forty-fives. He made sure that the six-shooters were in
perfect order and that they rested free in the holsters. That sixth sense
acquired by "bad men," by means of which they sniff danger when it is
close, was telling him that smoke would rise before he left the house.

He stepped to the porch and knocked. There came a moment's silence, a
low-pitched murmur of whispering voices carried through an open window,
the shuffling of feet. The door was opened by Brad Steelman. He was alone
in the room.

"Where's Dug?" asked Shorty bluntly.

"Why, Dug--why, he's here, Shorty. Didn't know it was you. 'Lowed it
might be some one else. So he stepped into another room."

The short cowpuncher walked in and closed the door behind him. He stood
with his back to it, facing the other door of the room.

"Did you hire Dug to fire the chaparral?" he asked, his voice ominously
quiet.

A flicker of fear shot to the eyes of the oil promoter. He recognized
signs of peril and his heart was drenched with an icy chill. Shorty was
going to turn on him, had become a menace.

"I--I dunno what you mean," he quavered. "I'll call Dug if you wanta see
him." He began to shuffle toward the inner room.

"Hold yore hawsses, Brad. I asked you a question." The cold eyes of the
gunman bored into those of the other man. "Howcome you to hire Dug to
burn the range?"

"You know I wouldn't do that," the older man whined. "I got sheep, ain't
I? Wouldn't be reasonable I'd destroy their feed. No, you got a wrong
notion about--"