ked among themselves, why, they're all riding for Slade's
brand--and there you are."

Deane was regarding the penciled memorandum signed by Slade.

"Not a very impressive document," he observed.

Harris laughed at the other's evident disapproval of such a slipshod
method of property transfer.

"Not very," he agreed. "But it's absolutely good. You could borrow
money against that at the bank. He doesn't get us that way but here's
how he does: He's mapped out a rebrand system. His rebrand is Triangle
on the hip. When he gets our exchange slip all he has to do is go on
his range and run the Triangle on the hip of the number of Three Bar
stock it calls for. There are Three Bar cows ranging a hundred miles
from here, just as there's brands a hundred miles off whose stock turns
up here--with a Triangle on the hip. Who's going to check Slade up?
It would take three crews to cover his range and tally the fresh Three
Bar rebrands of this one season--a few here and a few there. He ships
trainloads of cows in a year. There's some old rebrands in each lot,
say; maybe more than last year's exchange. Well he simply has been
holding them over. He can easy explain that. It would break a small
outfit to hire enough hands to cover his range and check him up--and
he'd buy part of those. The albino's men are petty-larceny bandits
compared with Slade."

Deane turned to the girl.

"Billie, why don't you get out of a game where everything is crooked--a
game of who can steal the most and every man for himself?" he asked.

"Why don't you fold your hands and give up your business the first
thing that goes wrong?" she countered. "Instead of trying to remedy
it?"

"But you don't have to do it," he urged.

"Neither do you," she said. "I've the same pride in the Three Bar that
you have in anything you've helped build up. You'd fight all the
harder for one of your schemes that was hard-pressed--and so would I."

She turned to her teepee and ended the discussion, her pride a little
hurt that Deane should so little appreciate her work--and the spirit
that made her hold on instead of giving up.

That evening they rode up to the Three Bar just as Waddles announced
the evening meal.

"She's hot!" the big voice wailed. "She's re-e-ed hot!"

The hands were gathering at the ranch, coming in from the range for a
frolic before the beef round-up should keep out for another month.
Deane's time was up and he had planned to leave on