d the halfbreed.

The Sergeant bent over his girth with flushed face.

"I have no idea what's in store for you, Pete. The Inspector has a lot
of faith in you."

Blue Pete studied him quizzically. "More'n you have?"

"I don't know. Oh, I don't understand."

A shadow of pain came into the halfbreed's face. "I wudn't try then,"
he said shortly. And Mahon remembered that the Inspector had advised
the same.

When they had been riding a long time the half-breed spoke wistfully.
"I wasn't rustlin', Boy. All I did was to take from Duchy and Bilsy
some o' the horses they rustled. If I hadn't, yuh wudn't 'a' seed 'em
ever again. I've got 'em all back--all I took from them. . . . An' I
ain't chargin' nothin' fer it neither."

Mahon thought it all out laboriously.

"But you stole them again from Torrance."

"Sure! Torrance knowed they was stole. He wudn't 'a got any other
kind fer ten bucks. Yuh don't call that rustlin'?"

Mahon smiled--the halfbreed's code was so simple.

"Tell it to the Inspector like that," he pleaded.

"Sure I will! An' I know dang well _he'll_ see."

Inspector Barker lifted frowning eyes to the opening door. Stiff,
waiting for permission to enter, Sergeant Mahon stood looking at him
from the hall. A brown hand reached forward from behind and pushed him
aside. And there was the grinning face of the half-breed.

The Inspector cleared his throat huskily. The proper thing, he knew,
was to look severe, but the lines wouldn't form in the right places.
Hungrily the halfbreed's eyes roamed to the tobacco pouch spilled on
the blotter; the old corncob pipe was fumbling expectantly in his big
fist.

"Same baccy, Inspector?" he enquired innocently, stepping through the
door.

The lines in the Inspector's face were getting out of hand entirely.
In another moment--

He swung fiercely on the Sergeant.

"Get out!" he snapped; and slammed the door in his face.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF BLUE PETE***

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