n. He'd fix it for
Carp without Slade's name even coming into it at all. Carp might have
a good idea where the money came from but he'd draw it from Morrow and
never get to the man behind. We'll never get anything on Bentley for
that reason--because he's known to draw Slade's pay."

"Then how can we ever prove anything on Slade?" she insisted.

"It's ten to one we can't," he said. "Even if one of his chief fixers
should turn him up it wouldn't work. It would be the same old
story--the word of an owner against that of a self-confessed thief. We
may have to handle Slade without proof."

Horne came back from Brill's in the early evening and another man rode
with him.

"Alden," Billie said. "I wonder what the sheriff is doing out in here."

The sheriff stripped the saddle from his horse and the wrangler swooped
down to haze the animal in with the remuda as Alden joined Harris and
the girl. He was a tall, gaunt man with a slight stoop. His keen gray
eyes peered forth from a maze of sun-wrinkles surmounted by bushy
eyebrows, the drooping gray mustache accentuating rather than
detracting from the hawk-like strength of countenance. He dropped a
hand on the girl's shoulder and looked down at her.

"How are things breaking this season, Billie?" he asked. "Everything
running smooth?"

"About the same," she said. They were old friends and the girl knew
that Alden would help her in any possible way.

The sheriff turned to Harris.

"I see you've settled down to a steady job, Cal, instead of browsing
round the hills alone. I run across Horne at Brill's and he was
telling me about some one gunning for you from the brush. Morrow, he
says. Do you want me to pick Morrow up?"

"It would only waste your time," Harris said. "We couldn't prove it on
him--the way things are."

"Fact," Alden agreed. "But I could hold him till after you're back at
the ranch. Some day folks may wake up and need a sheriff. It's hard
to say."

The men had finished working the herd and were crowding around the
wagon for their meal.

"You go ahead and eat, Billie," Alden said. "Cal and I'll feed a
little later on. I've got a fuss to pick with Cal."

Billie left them together and the sheriff squatted on his heels.

"What's this rumor about your farming the Three Bar?" he asked. "Horne
said all the hands were guessing, but I haven't heard anything about it
outside."

"And I don't want it leaking out before we start," Harris sa