“Ask your man Duffy.  Bard’s ridin’ Duffy’s grey right now.”

“But Duffy will press no claim,” said the rancher eagerly.  “I’ll see to that.  I’ll pay him ten times the value of his horse.  Glendin, you can’t punish a man for a theft of which Duffy will not complain.”

“Drew, you know what the boys on the range think of a hoss thief.  It ain’t the price of what they steal; it’s the low-down soul of the dog that would steal it.  It ain’t the money.  But what’s a man without a hoss on the range?  Suppose his hoss is stole while he’s hundred miles from nowhere?  What does it mean?  You know; it means dyin’ of thirst and goin’ through a hundred hells before the finish.  I say shootin’ a man is nothin’ compared with stealin’ a hoss.  A man that’ll steal a hoss will shoot his own brother; that’s what he’ll do.  But I don’t need to tell you.  You know it better’n me.  What was it you done with your own hands to Louis Borgen, the hoss-rustler, back ten years ago?”

A dead voice answered Glendin:  “What has set you on the trail of Bard?”

“His own wrong doin’.”

The rancher waved a hand of careless dismissal.

“I know you, Glendin,” he said.

The deputy stirred in his chair, and then cleared his throat.

He said in a rising tone:  “What d’you know?”

“I don’t think you really care to hear it.  To put it lightly, Glendin, you’ve done many things for money.  I don’t accuse you of them.  But if you want to do one thing more, you can make more money at a stroke than you’ve made in all the rest.”

With all his soul the deputy was cursing Nash, but now the thing was done, and he must see it through.

He rose glowering on Drew.

“I’ve stood a pile already from you; this is one beyond the limit.  Bribery ain’t my way, Drew, no matter what I’ve done before.”

“Is it war, then?”

And Glendin answered, forcing his tone into fierceness:  “Anything you want—­any way you want it!”

“Glendin,” said the other with a sudden lowering of his voice, “has some other man been talking to you?”

“Who?  Me?  Certainly not.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Drew, rein up.  They’s one thing no man can say to me and get away with it.”

“I tell you, man, I’m holding myself in harder than I’ve ever done before.  Answer me!”

He did not even rise, but Glendin, his hand twitching close to the butt of his gun, moved step by step away from those keen eyes.

“Answer me!”

“Nash; he’s been to Eldara.”

“I might have known.  He told you about this?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going the full limit of your power against Bard?”

“I’ll do nothin’ that ain’t been done by others before me.”

“Glendin, there have been cowardly legal murders before.  Tell me at least that you will not send a posse to ‘apprehend’ Bard until it’s learned whether or not Ben will die—­and whether or not Duffy will press the charge of horse stealing.”