y Louise's
tone was positively venomous in its contempt. "Why didn't you make
Charlie practise on a cowhide for awhile first?" she asked Marthy
cuttingly.

Marthy ignored the sarcasm. Perhaps it did not penetrate her stolid
mind at all. "Charlie never worked any brands, Billy Louise," she
stated with her glum directness.

"Oh, I beg his pardon, I'm sure! Did you?"

"No, I never done such a thing, neither. I don't know what you're
talkin' about."

"Well, who did, then?" Billy Louise faced the old woman pitilessly.

"I d'no." Marthy lifted her hand and made a futile effort to tuck in a
few of the longest wisps of hair.

"Well, of all the--" The stern gray eyes of Billy Louise flew wide
open at the effrontery of the words. If they expected her to believe
that!

"That's it, Miss Louise. That's the point we'd like to settle,
ourselves. I know it sounds outrageous, but it's a fact. Peter and I
found those cattle up in the hills, with our brand worked over the V.
On my word of honor, not one of us knows who did it."

"But you've got them down here--"

"Well--" Charlie threw out a hand helplessly. His eyes met hers with
appealing frankness. "We couldn't rub out the brands; what else could
we do? I figured that somebody else would see them if we left them out
in the hills, and it might be rather hard to convince a man; you see,
we can't even convince you! But, so help me, not one of us branded
those cattle, Miss Louise. I believe that whoever has been rustling
stock around here deliberately tried to fix evidence against us. I'm a
stranger in the country, and I don't know the game very well; I'm an
easy mark!"

"Yes, you're that, all right enough!" Billy Louise spoke with blunt
disfavor, but her contemptuous certainty of his guilt was plainly
wavering. "To go and bring stolen cattle right down here--"

"It seemed to me they'd be safer here than anywhere else," Charlie
observed naively. "Nobody ever comes down here, unknown to us. I had
it sized up that the fellow who worked those brands would never dream
we'd bring the stock right into the Cove. Why, Miss Louise, even I
would know better than to put our brand on top of Seabeck's and expect
it to pass inspection. If I wanted to steal cattle, I wouldn't go at
it that way!"

Billy Louise glanced uncertainly at him and then at Marthy, facing her
grimly. She did not know what to think, and she showed it.

"How do you mean--the real rustlers?