nd red hair.

"If he has we'll jack him in the jug." He threw back the lapel of his
coat, displaying a silver star.

"But I ain't got no gun," protested John Wesley meekly. "You-all can
see for yourself."

"We will--don't worry! Don't you make one wrong move or I'll put out
your light!"

"Be you the sheriff?"

"Police. Go to him, Ben!"

"No gun," reported Ben after a swift search of the shrinking captive.

"I done told you so, didn't I?"

"Mighty good thing for you, old rooster. Gun-toting is strictly barred
in Las Uvas. You got to take your gun off fifteen minutes after you
get in from the road and you can't put it on till fifteen minutes
before you take the road again."

"Is that--er--police regulations or state law?"

"State law--and has been any time these twenty-five years. Say, you
doddering old fool, what do you think this is--a night school?"

"I--I guess I'll go to bed," said Pringle miserably.

"I--I guess if you come back I'll throw you out," mimicked Ben with a
guffaw.

Pringle made no answer. He shuffled into the hall and up the stairway
to his bedroom. He unlocked the door noisily; he opened it noisily;
he took his sixshooter and belt from the wall quietly and closed the
door, noisily again; he locked it--from the outside. Then he did a
curious thing; he sat down very gently and removed his boots.

* * * * *

The four in the barroom listened, grinning. When they heard Pringle's
door slam shut Bell Applegate nodded and Creagan went out on the
street. Behind him, at a table near the pool-room door, the law
planned ways and means in a slinking undertone. "You keep in the
background, Joe. Let us do the talking. Foy just naturally despises
you--we might not get him to stay the fifteen minutes out. You stay
back there. Remember now, don't shoot till Ben lets him get his arm
loose. _Sabe_?"

"Maybe Meester Ben don't find heem."

"Oh, yes, he will. Ditch meeting to-night. Ought to be out about now.
Setting the time to use the water and assessing _fatiga_ work. Every
last man with a water right will be there, sure, and Foy's got a
dozen. Max, you are to be a witness, remember, and you mustn't be
mixed up in it. Got your story straight?"

"Foy he comes in and makes a war-talk about Dick Marr," recited Max.
"After we powwow awhile you see his gun. You tell him he's under
arrest for carryin' concealed weapons. You and Ben grabbed his arm; he
jerked loose and went