nobody except himself would have been to blame. But I'll see how Miss Lovell feels.'
He rejoined Dale.
'Is it very bad?' she asked anxiously.
'Just a scratch, though he is making an awful fuss about it. Black suggests we give out a story that he shot himself. How about that? It might save some talk, though, of course, nobody would blame you.'
'If they want to tell that story, we need not deny it,' Dale replied. 'I'm so glad it isn't bad. I don't know how I came to do it. It sort of — happened — when he was jumping at me.'
'Don't ever make any apologies, Miss Lovell. He got what was coming to him. Just stand pat and say nothing. Let them think you knew what you were doing.'
'You mean — that I shot him on purpose?'
'Yes. When you covered him with the gun, you meant to shoot if he kept coming. Maybe you got a little goosey and shot when it wasn't necessary. We don't have to admit you got excited. So far we've had the breaks and come out on top in every tussle. That throws a jolt into them. Let 'em think we're too cold-blooded and smart for their game.'
'Tell them whatever you like. You are sure the wound isn't serious?'
'He'll be all right in a week.' Tom sauntered back to the enemy. He reported that Miss Lovell felt this ought to be taken to the sheriff, but, in view of the fact that Frawley had already been punished enough, she had decided to let it go pending good behavior on his part.
Frawley cut in, his voice angry and frightened. 'Don't stand jawing here, Tick. Get me to Doc Hinman, damn it.'
Black turned his car and headed for town.
Dale explained that she had been going to Big Bridge because she had heard from Helen that Fenwick was there making trouble. She did not like to do much telephoning because of listeners.
'All quiet on the Soledad,' Tom assured her. 'Brick did have an idea, but it fizzled out. Right now he is enjoying a little well-earned rest as the guest of Sheriff Elbert.'
'You mean he is in jail!' she said.
'Correct.' Wall gave her an account of the adventures of the previous night, and of the meeting at the restaurant an hour or two ago. 'Hal was on his way to Casa Rita when I last saw him,' he concluded.
There did not seem to be any point in continuing the trip to town, Dale thought, since she now had all the information she wanted. Wall drove behind her back to the Seven Up and Down. From there he got in touch with the M K ranch. Since everything was going well there, he decided to accept Dale's invitation to stay at the bunkhouse with her men for a few days. There might be repercussions from the Frawley shooting, and it would be just as well to be on hand.
Later in the day he telephoned Doctor Hinman and asked him as to Frawley's condition. 'I hear he shot himself,' Tom mentioned. 'Anything serious?'
Doctor Hinman thought not. The wound was a flesh one. Fortunately, no arteries had been in the path of the bullet.
It was always surprising to him, though by this time he ought to know better than to be astonished, how many men used to weapons accidentally shot themselves. Some day they would give up this fool custom of monkeying with pistols, the doctor fumed.
WHAT RANDOLPH ARNOLD had to tell Hal was nothing more definite than a suspicion. He had been at Phoenix trying to dig up some evidence and had fallen into talk with an oldtime cattleman named Jackson Selkirk in the lobby of the Adams Hotel. Arnold had been interested in his salty reminiscences and they had eaten dinner together. In his tales of the old days, Selkirk had naturally some stories to tell about rustling. Answering a question of the Easterner, he had sketched on the back of an old envelope examples of well-known brands that had been doctored to make quite different ones.
For instance, Goodnight's J A had become, by the touch of a running iron, D A. The addition of two strokes and a letter transformed the 3 C to B 0 B. Selkirk's own brand, the S Bar, which on the flank of a cow was S, had been changed to the Box S, burned into the hide 
'There's still a good deal of cattle-stealing, I'm told,' Arnold had ventured. 'Or is this exaggerated?'
'I dunno. I quit running cattle years ago. Now that the stock is under fence, the rustling is different. They do it with trucks. Cut the wires, load up the stuff, and run it fast clear out of the district.'
'They don't have to change the brands then now?'
'I wouldn't know about that. If they were going to beef the critters right away, they might not, but if they were going to feed the stuff, they probably would.' Selkirk cut himself a chew of tobacco and put it in his mouth. 'Funny thing. I was thinking about that the other day when I was down at Casa Rita. I moseyed round to the Gibson Packing Company, and I saw in the pens some good-looking steers branded 
. The mind of an old codger like me always runs back to the old days, so I got to figurin' that a thief could have made that Circle X by touching up the brand of the Seven Up and Down which looks just like a capital Z. 'Course I don't mean that was done. I was just letting my mind play tricks.'
Arnold repeated this conversation to Hal Stevens. 'So I ran over here to see what I could find out. There are no cattle in the pens now with that brand on them. But there is a big warehouse where they keep the hides before they send them to the tannery. Looking at those hides wouldn't tell me anything, but it might give you information I couldn't see.'
'It might,' Hal agreed. 'If there are any Circle X hides there, I could probably tell if the brands had been altered recently. The fellow who changes the brand is up against a difficulty. To make it look the same on the surface, he has to burn the hair off the new part of the brand and touch the hide itself quite lightly. Otherwise the more recent burn will look angry. While the animal is on the hoof, that is fine for the thief, but after the steer has been slaughtered, an examination of the hide could show the added scars were different from the original one.'
'We would have to get into the Gibson warehouse to check up on this,' Arnold said.
'Yes. If the manager of the company isn't in on the steal, all we would have to do would be to ask his permission. If he is sharing in the profits of the rustling, we'd have to get in without his knowledge.'
'Assuming that some of the hides were taken from Seven Up and Down steers.'
'First, we ought to find out who owns this Circle X brand. It may be a legitimate outfit nowhere near the Soledad Valley. In that case we can find out from the owner if he recently sold a bunch to the Gibson packers.'
'How can you locate the owner?' Arnold asked.
'All brands have to be recorded at the State House. I'll phone to Phoenix and find who claims this one.'
Within the hour they knew that the Circle X had been recorded by Edward Mullins of the Rabbit Ear Gorge range. Hal chuckled. Some more of Tick Black's smooth work. The brand was in the name of a stooge. He would reap the profits, and if by unlucky chance there was trouble, he would slide out and let Mullins take the punishment.
They were still in the dark as to the Gibson Company's share, if any, in the theft. It might be an entirely innocent buyer. The manager and principal owner of the packing house was Jubal L. Gibson. There had been litigation between him and the widow of his brother, also one of the owners of the company. She was suing him on the ground that he had defrauded her. Hal did not know the right of the case. He had met Jubal L. only once and had not liked him. The head of the packing house was a plump, soft-handed man with a superficial heartiness that failed to give warmth to his cold eyes. But the lack of an engaging personality was not
Hal went to the leading banker in Casa Rita for information. James Hunter had been an Arizona ranger in his youth. From that he had drifted into mining and had made a small fortune in copper. Since Hal had been a small boy, he had known Hunter as a blunt, upright citizen, a wise man with a kindly sense of tolerance.
He greeted Hal and his friend warmly, took them into his private office, and offered cigars.
'No see you for a long time, son,' he told Stevens. A smile lit his face. 'The last time I was fronting for you to keep you out of jail.'
