scontint. I'm beginnin'
to feel a little excited meself. Now what do ye suppose that gang av min
wid Winchesters was doin', comin' from thot direction this mornin'?" He
pointed toward the trail that Trevison was riding. "An' that big stiff,
Corrigan, wid thim!"

Trevison got the answer to this query the minute he reached the Diamond K
ranchhouse. His foreman came running to him, pale, disgusted, his voice
snapping like a whip:

"They've busted your desk an' rifled it. Twenty guys who said they was
deputies from the court in Manti, an' Corrigan. I was here alone,
watchin', as you told me, but couldn't move a finger--damn 'em!"

Trevison dismounted and ran into the house. The room that he used as an
office was in a state of disorder. Papers, books, littered the floor. It
was evident that a thorough search had been made--for something. Trevison
darted to the desk and ran a hand into the pigeonhole in which he kept the
deed which he had come for. The hand came out, empty. He sprang to the
door of a small closet where, in a box that contained some ammunition that
he kept for the use of his men, he had placed the money that Rosalind
Benham had brought to him. The money was not there. He walked to the
center of the room and stood for an instant, surveying the mass of litter
around him, reeling, rage-drunken, murder in his heart. Barkwell, the
foreman, watching him, drew great, long breaths of sympathy and
excitement.

"Shall I get the boys an' go after them damn sneaks?" he questioned, his
voice tremulous. "We'll clean 'em out--smoke 'em out of the county!" he
threatened. He started for the door.

"Wait!" Trevison had conquered the first surge of passion; his grin was
cold and bitter as he crossed glances with his foreman. "Don't do
anything--yet. I'm going to play the peace string out. If it doesn't work,
why then--" He tapped his pistol holster significantly.

"You get a few of the boys and stay here with them. It isn't probable that
they'll try anything like that again, because they've got what they
wanted. But if they happen to come again, hold them until I come. I'm
going to court."

Later, in Manti, he was sitting opposite Graney in a room in the hotel to
which the Judge had gone.

"H'm," said the latter, compressing his lips; "that's sharp practice. They
are not wasting any time."

"Was it legal?"

"The law is elastic--some judges stretch it more than others. A
search-warrant and a writ of attachment probab