he meeting of their eyes some
intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and
the older sullenly denied.

"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly.

Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the
glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with
my naked eyes," he cut in.

The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with
a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance
from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed
the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave.
"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things
meet up together, what does it mean?"

"Branding!" cried the girl.

"That's right--branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?"
Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil.

"Rustling!" she breathed again.

"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried
jubilantly.

Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the
enthusiasm of the other.

"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all."

Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at
the boy. "Armed, Phil?"

The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes."

"Are you going to--to----" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face.

"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right
here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you.
We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if
he acts sensible," Healy reassured.

"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother
ordered sharply.

"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched.
"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?"

"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his
friend up the draw.

The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were
going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were
opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she
had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses
again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the
drama.

The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that
menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All
her lif