“Look!  This is the Cross-Triangle brand:  [Illustration]; and this:  [Illustration], the Four-Bar-M, happens to be Nick Cambert’s iron, over at Tailholt Mountain.  Now, can’t you see how, supposing I were Nick, and this calf were branded with the Cross-Triangle, I could work the iron over into my brand?”

Patches nodded.  “But is there no way to detect such a fraud?”

“It’s a mighty hard thing to prove that an iron has bees worked over,” Phil answered slowly.  “About the only sure way is to catch the thief in the act.”

“But there are the earmarks,” said Patches, a few moments later, when Phil had released the branded and marked calf—­“the earmarks and the brand wouldn’t agree.”

“They would if I were Nick,” said the cowboy.  Then he added quickly, as if regretting his remark, “Our earmark is an under-bit right and a split left, you said.  Well, the Four-Bar-M earmark is a crop and an under-bit right and a swallow-fork left.”  With the point of his iron now he again marked in the dirt.  “Here’s your Cross-Triangle:  [Illustration]; and here’s your Pour-Bar-M:  [Illustration].”

“And if a calf branded with a Tailholt iron were to be found following a Cross-Triangle cow, then what?” came Patches’ very natural question.

“Then,” returned the foreman of the Cross-Triangle grimly, “there would be a mighty good chance for trouble.”

“But it seems to me,” said Patches, as they rode on, “that it would be easily possible for a man to brand another man’s calf by mistake.”

“A man always makes a mistake when he puts his iron on another man’s property,” returned the cowboy shortly.

“But might it not be done innocently, just the same!” persisted Patches.

“Yes, it might,” admitted Phil.

“Well, then, what would you do if you found a calf, that you knew belonged to the Dean, branded with some other man’s brand?  I mean, how would you proceed?”

“Oh, I see what you are driving at,” said Phil in quite a different tone.  “If you ever run on to a case, the first thing for you to do is to be dead sure that the misbranded calf belongs to one of our cows.  Then, if you are right, and it’s not too far, drive the cow and calf into the nearest corral and report it.  If you can’t get them to a corral without too much trouble, just put the Cross-Triangle on the calf’s ribs.  When he shows up in the next rodeo, with the right brand on his ribs, and some other brand where the right brand ought to be—­you’ll take pains to remember his natural markings, of course—­you will explain the circumstances, and the owner of the iron that was put on him by mistake will be asked to vent his brand.  A brand is vented by putting the same brand on the animal’s shoulder.  Look!  There’s one now.”  He pointed to an animal a short distance away.  “See, that steer is branded Diamond-and-a-Half on hip and shoulder, and Cross-Triangle on his ribs.  Well, when he was a yearling he belonged to the Diamond-and-a-Half outfit.  We picked him up in the rodeo, away over toward Mud Tanks.  He was running with our stock, and Stillwell didn’t want to go to the trouble of taking him home—­about thirty miles it is—­so he sold him to Uncle Will, and vented his brand, as you see.”