“I ain’t tellin’ nothin’ to nobody,” said Joe sullenly, as he came slowly toward the Dean’s cowboy.

“No?” said Patches.

“No, I ain’t,” asserted the Tailholt Mountain man stoutly.  “That there calf is a Four-Bar-M calf, all right.”

“I see it is,” returned the Cross-Triangle rider calmly.  “But I’ll just wait until Nick gets back, and ask him what it was before he worked over the iron.”

Joe, excited and confused by the cool nerve of this man, fell readily into the verbal trap.

“You better go now, an’ not wait to ask Nick no fool questions like that.  If he finds you here talkin’ with me when he gets back, hell’ll be a-poppin’ fer sure.  Me an’ you are friends, Patches, an’ that’s why I’m a-tellin’ you you better pull your freight while the goin’s good.”

“Much obliged, Joe, but there’s no hurry.  You don’t need to be so rushed.  It will be an hour before Nick gets back, if he drives that cow as far as he ought.”

Again poor Yavapai Joe told more than he intended.  “You don’t need to worry none ‘bout Nick; he’ll sure drive her far enough.  He ain’t takin’ no chances, Nick ain’t.”

With his convictions so readily confirmed, Patches had good ground upon which to base his following remarks.  He had made a long shot when he spoke so confidently of the brand on the calf being worked over.  For, of course, the calf might not have been branded at all when the Tailholt Mountain men caught it.  But Joe’s manner, as well as his warning answer, told that the shot had gone home.  The fact that the brand had been worked over established also the fact that it was the Cross-Triangle brand that had been changed, because the Cross-Triangle was the only brand in that part of the country that could be changed into the Four-Bar-M.

Patches, dropping his easy manner, and speaking straight to the point, said, “Look here, Joe, you and I might as well get down to cases.  You know I am your friend, and I don’t want to see you in trouble, but you can take it from me that you are in mighty serious trouble right now.  I was hiding right there in those bushes, close enough to see all that happened, and I know that this is a Cross-Triangle calf, and that Nick and you worked the brand over.  You know that it means the penitentiary for you, as well as for Nick, if the boys don’t string you both up without any ceremony.”

Patches paused to let his words sink in.

Joe’s face was ashy white, and he was shaking with fright, as he stole a sneaking look toward his horse.

Patches added sharply, “You can’t give me the slip, either; I can kill you before you get half way to your horse.”

Trapped and helpless, Joe looked pleadingly at his captor.  “You wouldn’t send me up, would you, now, Patches?” he whined.  “You an’ me’s good friends, ain’t we?  Anyway he wouldn’t let me go to the pen, an’ the boys wouldn’t dast do nothin’ to me when they knew.”