to the corral with short ropes, and finally turned her
attention to her visitors.

"Howdy, Mr. Douglas? Fine day we're having," she greeted the dour
Scotchman amiably.

The sheriff coughed behind his hand, looked sidelong at his companion,
rode a step or two nearer to Belle, swung a leg over the cantle of his
saddle. Perhaps he expected Aleck Douglas to introduce him, but he did
not wait for the formality.

"Mrs. Lorrigan, I'm sheriff of the county," he began ingratiatingly,
when his two feet were on the ground.

"You are?" Belle flashed a row of very white teeth. "You sure don't
look it. I'd have taken you for a regular human being."

"Mr. Douglas, here, would like to take a look at some hides Mr.
Lorrigan has got curing. He thinks possibly--"

"'Tis useless to cover the truth wi' saft words, shuriff," Douglas
interrupted glumly. "'Tis stolen cattle we are tracing, and 'tis here
we wad look for the hides of them. I hae guid reason--"

"You'll find my husband at the round-up. Before you do any searching,
you had better go and have a talk with him. When he's gone strangers
don't go prowling around this ranch."

"We'll have our talk with him after we've taken a look around,"
the sheriff amended, grinning a little. "It's just a matter of
form--nothing you need to object to, one way or the other. I don't
suppose we'll find anything--"

"No, I don't suppose you will. Not unless you find it on the road
back. I hate to seem unfriendly, but I'll just have to ask you to
crawl on your horse and go see Tom about it."

"Now, we don't want any unpleasantness at all, Mrs. Lorrigan. But this
man has swore out a warrant--"

"Shucks! What he does never did interest me one way or the other, and
does not now. I'm telling you there'll be no snooping around here
while Tom's away."

"Oh, well, now!" The sheriff rather prided himself on his ability to
"handle folks peaceable," as he expressed it. He injected a little
more of the oil of persuasiveness into his voice. It was his standard
recipe for avoiding trouble with a woman. "You don't think for a
minute I'd take advantage of his absence, Mrs. Lorrigan? Nothing like
that at all. We just want to see if a certain cowhide is here. If it
isn't, then we won't need to bother Tom at all, maybe. Get down, Mr.
Douglas, and we'll just have a look around. Mrs. Lorrigan ain't going
to make no objections to that."

Belle smiled. "Oh, yes, she is. She's going to do quite a lot of
objec