f
men, had got into the clutches of the law. It happened this way.

Early in the spring some cowpunchers, driving in cattle which had
strayed during the winter over the level country far to the east of
the Little Missouri, came upon a cow marked with the maltese cross.
They drove her westward with the rest of the "strays," but none of the
men belonged to the "Roosevelt outfit" and their interest in this
particular cow was therefore purely altruistic. She was not a
particularly good cow, moreover, for she had had a calf in the winter
and her udder had partially frozen. When, therefore, the necessity
arose of paying board at the section-house at Gladstone after a few
happy days at that metropolis, the cowboys, who did not have a cent of
real money among them, hit upon the brilliant idea of offering the cow
in payment.

The section boss accepted the settlement, but evidently not without a
sense of the consequences that might follow the discovery in his
possession of a cow for which he could not present a bill of sale. He
therefore promptly passed the cow on to a Russian cobbler in payment
for a pair of shoes. The cobbler, with the European peasant's uncanny
ability to make something out of nothing, doctored the cow with a care
which he would not have dreamed of bestowing on his wife, and made a
profitable milk-provider out of her.

Sylvane discovered her during the round-up, picketed outside the
Russian's shack, and promptly proceeded to take possession of her. The
Russian protested and told his story. Sylvane, pointing out that he
was moved by charity and not by necessity, offered the man six
dollars, which had been the price of the shoes. The Russian threw up
his hands and demanded no less than forty. Sylvane shrugged his
shoulders and annexed the cow.

That evening as Sylvane was sitting around the mess-wagon with a dozen
other cowpunchers, a stranger came walking from the direction of
Gladstone. The cow was hitched to the wagon, for she had shown a
tendency to choose her own master. The stranger started to detach the
rope that held her.

"Hold on!" cried Sylvane, "that is our cow."

The stranger took some papers out of his pocket and handed them to
Sylvane.

"Here are replevin papers," he said.

"I don't want your papers," remarked Sylvane, who did not know a
replevin paper from a dog license.

The stranger threw the papers at Sylvane's feet.

"I've come to take this cow."

"Well," remarked Sylvane, "if