"An' that big stiff, Corrigan, wid thim!" Trevison got the answer to this query the minute he reached the Diamond K ranchhouse. His foreman came running to him, pale, disgusted, his voice snapping like a whip: "They've busted your desk an' rifled it. Twenty guys who said they was deputies from the court in Manti, an' Corrigan. I was here alone, watchin', as you told me, but couldn't move a finger--damn 'em!" Trevison dismounted and ran into the house. The room that he used as an office was in a state of disorder. Papers, books, littered the floor. It was evident that a thorough search had been made--for something. Trevison darted to the desk and ran a hand into the pigeonhole in which he kept the deed which he had come for. The hand came out, empty. He sprang to the door of a small closet where, in a box that contained some ammunition that he kept for the use of his men, he had placed the money that Rosalind Benham had brought to him. The money was not there. He walked to the center of the room and stood for an instant, surveying the mass of litter around him, reeling, rage-drunken, murder in his heart. Barkwell, the foreman, watching him, drew great, long breaths of sympathy and excitement. "Shall I get the boys an' go after them damn sneaks?" he questioned, his voice tremulous. "We'll clean 'em out--smoke 'em out of the county!" he threatened. He started for the door. "Wait!" Trevison had conquered the first surge of passion; his grin was cold and bitter as he crossed glances with his foreman. "Don't do anything--yet. I'm going to play the peace string out. If it doesn't work, why then--" He tapped his pistol holster significantly. "You get a few of the boys and stay here with them. It isn't probable that they'll try anything like that again, because they've got what they wanted. But if they happen to come again, hold them until I come. I'm going to court." Later, in Manti, he was sitting opposite Graney in a room in the hotel to which the Judge had gone. "H'm," said the latter, compressing his lips; "that's sharp practice. They are not wasting any time." "Was it legal?" "The law is elastic--some judges stretch it more than others. A search-warrant and a writ of attachment probably did the business in this case. What I can't understand is why Judge Lindman issued the writ at all--if he did so. You are the defendant, and you certainly would have brought the deed into court as a means of proving your case."