Hill did you come from?"

"I'm the one to ask questions, son," returned the little marshal, the
vicious blue barrel shining in the sunlight, "and the smarter you
answer, the less reason I shall have to hurt yer. Don't reach for that
gun! Are you travelling alone?"

Moore nodded, his hands up, but still grasping the reins.

"Then climb down over the wheel. Jim, take a look under that canvas;
Moore, here, is generally a genial sort o' liar, and we'd better be
sure. All right--hey? Then dismount, Matt, and be quick about it.
Now unbuckle that belt, and hand the whole outfit over to Westcott;
then we'll talk business together."

He shoved his own weapon back into its holster, and faced the prisoner,
who had recovered from his first shock of surprise, and whose
pugnacious temper was beginning to assert itself. Brennan read this in
the man's sulky, defiant glance, and his lips smiled grimly.

"Getting bullish, are you, Matt?" he said, rather softly. "Goin' ter
keep a close tongue in your head; so that's the game? Well, I
wouldn't, son, if I was you. Now, see here, Moore," and the voice
perceptibly hardened, and the marshal's eyes were like flints. "You
know me, I reckon, an' that I ain't much on boys' play. You never
heard tell o' my hittin' anybody just fer fun, did yer?"

There was no answer.

"An' yer never heard no one say," went on Brennan, "that I was afraid
ter hit when I needed to. I reckon also yer know what sorter man Jim
Westcott is. Now the two ov us ain't out here in this damned Shoshone
desert fer the fun of it--not by a jugful. Get that fact into yer
head, son, an' maybe it'll bring yer some sense. Do yer get me?"

"Yes," sullenly and reluctantly. "But yer haven't got nuthin' on me."

"Oh, haven't I? Well, you shut up like a clam, and find out what I've
got. You drove a young woman out here from Haskell night afore last,
for Bill Lacy. Ain't abduction no crime? An' that's only one count.
I've had an eye on you for more'n six months, an' Lacy's been makin' a
damn cat's-paw out of you all that time. Well, Lacy is playin' his
last hand right now, an' I've got the cards." The marshal paused,
fully aware that he had struck home, then added quietly: "It allers
struck me, Matt, that naturally you was a pretty decent fellow, but had
drifted in with a bad crowd. I'm offering you now a chance to get
straight again." He threw back his coat and exhibited his star. "Yer
see, I ain't just