tate, and o' course it's our business to
clear the country of those devils. You're just the man we want, because
you've seen 'em and know who they are. You tell me what yuh know and
there'll be the biggest hangin' bee this State ever seen."

As has been said, Bud Larkin had the legitimate owner's hatred of these
thieves who preyed on the work of honest men, and had sworn to help run
them out of the country as soon as his own business was finished. Now, in
the flash of an eye he saw where he could turn the knowledge he had gained
to good account.

"You have rather queer ideas of me, Mr. Bissell," he said. "First, you
fight me until I am nearly ruined, then you expect I will turn around and
help you just as though nothing had happened."

"But in this," cried the cowman, "you've got to help us. This is all
outside of a war between the cows and the sheep. This is a matter of right
and justice."

"So is the matter of my sheep. The range is free and you won't let me use
it. Do you call that right or just, either one?"

Bissell choked on his own reply, and grew red with anger. Suddenly,
without exactly knowing how, the tables had been turned on him. Now,
instead of being the mighty baron with the high hand, he was the seeker
for help, and this despised sheepman held the trump cards.

Furthermore, Larkin's direct question was capable of a damaging reply.
Bissell sought desperately for a means of escape from the trap in which he
found himself.

"Do you mean, young feller, that you won't tell me about them rustlers?"

"That's about it. But I might on one condition."

"What's that?"

"That your cattlemen's association give the rest of my sheep undisturbed
passage north across the range to Montana."

"By gosh!" yelled the cowman, beside himself, springing out of his chair
and glaring at the other with clenched hands on his hips. "That's your
game, is it? Yuh pull our teeth an' then offer us grub, eh? Why, tan my
hide--" he gagged with wrath and stood speechless, a picture of impotent
fury.

Larkin laughed quietly.

"The shoe's on the other foot, but it doesn't seem to feel any too good,"
he sneered. "Better be reasonable now, hadn't you?"

"Reasonable? Sure, I'll be reasonable!" cried the other vindictively,
almost suffocated with his emotion. "Let me ask yuh something. Do you
absolutely refuse to tell about them rustlers if I don't do as you want
and let your sheep through?"

"Well, not exactly," replied Bud, gr