Brand Blotters

"'--mostly says the opposite of what she means, has a----'"

"I don't. I don't"

"'--has a spice of the devil in her, which----'"

"Now, I am mad," she interrupted, laughing.

"'--which is excusable, since she has the reddest lips for kissing in

Arizona.'"

He had gone too far. Her innocence was in arms. Norris knew it by the

swiftness with which the smile vanished from her face, by the flash of

anger in the eyes.

"I prefer to talk about something else, Mr. Norris," she said with all the

prim stiffness of a schoolgirl.

Her father relieved the tension by striding across from the stable. With

him came a bowlegged young fellow in plain leathers. The youngster was

Charley Hymer, one of the riders for the Bar Double G.

"You're here at the right time, Norris," Lee said grimly. "Charley has

just come down from Antelope Pass. He found one of my cows dead, with a

bullet hole through the forehead. The ashes of a fire were there, and in

the brush not far away a running iron."

The eyes of Norris narrowed to slits. He was the cattle detective of the

association and for a year now the rustlers had outgeneraled him. "I'll

have you take me to the spot, Charley. Get a move on you and we'll get

there soon as the moon is up."

Melissy gripped the arms of her chair tightly with both hands. She was

looking at Norris with a new expression, a kind of breathless fear. She

knew him for a man who could not be swerved from the thing he wanted. For

all his easy cynicism, he had the reputation of being a bloodhound on the

trail. Moreover, she knew that he was no friend to Jack Flatray. Why had

she left that running iron as evidence to convict its owner? What folly

not to have removed it from the immediate scene of the crime!

The cattle detective and her father had moved a few steps away and were

talking in low tones. Melissy became aware of a footfall. The man who

called himself Morse came around the corner of the house and stopped at

the porch steps.

"May I speak to you a moment, Miss Lee?" he said in a low voice.

"Of course."

The voice of Norris rose to an irritated snarl. "Tell you I've got

evidence, Lee. Mebbe it's not enough to convict, but it satisfies me

a-plenty that Jack Flatray's the man."

Melissy was frozen to a tense attention. Her whole mind was on what passed

between the detective and her father. Otherwise she would have noticed the

swift change that transformed the tenderfoot.