he said. "It calls for three hundred odd head of mixed
stuff. You can send yours over any time." He turned his horse and
followed after the ranger while the girl joined Harris and Deane.

Harris had slipped the strap of his glasses and handed them to Deane
who had dismounted and was peering off at the spot Harris had pointed
out. A few scattered shacks, showing as toy houses from the distance,
stood in the center of a broad open basin, sheltered on all sides by
the choppy mass of the Breaks. A solid corral, almost a stockade,
stood near the buildings and a few white points indicated that a teepee
or two had been pitched along its edge.

"That's Arnold's stockade," Harris explained to Deane. "Arnold was an
old-time rustler that finished at the end of a rope fifteen years ago.
Now all the drifters in the country stop over here if they want a place
to hole up."

Deane had been striving to fathom the attitude of a community where the
thieves were known as such, their headquarters a matter of common
knowledge, and yet allowed to carry on their trade.

"Can't the sheriff clean them out of there?" he asked.

"He could," Harris said. "But no man will make a complaint. They can
rustle every steer in the country and the losers are afraid to make a
report. Every outfit is supposed to protect its own. If Alden should
ride up to almost any ranch within a hundred miles and ask them if
they'd missed any stock in the last three years they'd shake their
heads and swear that they hadn't lost a hoof. But the Three Bar has a
clean page; we're not afraid he'll get a line on us while we're having
him round up some one else. The first time we get a scrap of real
evidence on any man we'll call Alden in."

"You told me the Three Bar herds have been cut in half," Deane said.
"How much evidence do you need?"

"It's like this:" Harris explained. "We'd have to make a specific
charge against a few men--name them in connection with some raid. That
nest down there is only a sort of stopping place. There's twenty or so
that use it on and off. Maybe the very men we'd name would be in
Coldriver or some other place and could prove it. Even if they
couldn't we couldn't get a man to testify. Then too, rustling is about
the hardest thing in the world to prove. There's a dozen ways they can
work it. I could catch some of them driving a bunch of Three Bar cows
toward the Idaho line. They'd look up and see me and calmly ride on
pas