t the cows. They could say the bunch was just drifting ahead of
their horses--that they weren't driving them at all. Who can prove a
case of rustling even if you see it, unless you actually catch one
altering a brand--which they wouldn't do anywhere within a hundred
miles of that brand's range."

"Then how will you ever convict one?" Deane asked.

"The only way to convict a rustler right now is to kill him and swear
that you run up on him changing a brand," Harris said. "I expect
that's what we'll have to do."

Deane looked at the girl to determine how she met this suggestion.
Instead of the shiver of distaste which he rather expected her lips
were pressed tight.

"A little of that would help Slade too," she said. "He told me just
now that he'd smash the Three Bar."

The man reflected that this sort of a life could not help but wear off
some of her natural fineness and harden her.

They followed the rims till they had cleared the Breaks, then angled
down to the foothills and headed for the Three Bar. They held a steady
gait until a half hour after sunset and camped in the open near a tiny
spring. Again Deane was impressed with the impropriety of the girl's
being out with two men who loved her and the thought was an ache that
remained with him. It was a natural reaction,--the lifelong training
to guard against appearances which were open to criticism as
religiously as against the accomplished fact.

As they sat round the little fire the girl handed Harris the paper
Slade had given her. It was a scrawled bill of sale calling for three
hundred odd head of Circle P cows, listed in the exact numbers of all
ages and sexes. In return she would send him an exchange slip for the
same number of Three Bar stock. This exchange system was one of
Slade's own devising, intended to eliminate the time and expense of
sending riders to scour adjacent ranges in search of drifted stock.
Each outfit exchanged slips based on the round-up tally with every
other brand and so could show bill of sale for off-brand stuff in their
beef shipments or for any rebrands on the range.

"This labor-saving device is Slade's trump card," Harris said. "It
works all his way. We couldn't turn in a false report. But he has
three crews covering his range, each under a different wagon foreman
and no one of them wise to what the rest are doing. It's only the
foremen that jot down the daily tallies and keep the final score. Even
if they tal