“Throwing away my gun and ammunition,” the tramp answered, his sardonic mouth twitching. “It don’t buy you anything to pull that funny stuff,” growled the foreman. “You ain’t got a gun to throw away.” Forbes turned the captured vagrant over to Burwell, one of the extra harvest hands, and left him at the bunkhouse while he went to telephone the doctor and the sheriff. It was a busy night at the Diamond Bar K. The foreman drove away and presently returned. Tug heard the voices of Betty and her father as they moved toward the house. Some one chugged up to the house in a car with one spark plug fouled or broken. Burwell went to the door of the bunkhouse. “Get ’em, Dusty?” he asked. “Not yet,” the cowpuncher answered while he was loosening the plug. “But, y’betcha, we’ll get ’em if this bird we done got caged didn’t play a lone hand.” Presently Dusty drove away again, in a hurry to rejoin his companions. He had come back to find out whether anything new had been discovered. The foreman showed up in the doorway. “The boss wants to have a talk with you, young fellow,” he said. Betty would have known without any explanation that the prisoner had no intention of running away. But Lon had no perception of this. He did not release his grip until the tramp was in the living-room. The owner of the Diamond Bar K lay on a lounge and Betty was hovering close to him as nurses do in their ministrations. Reed spoke at once. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, young man. Put your cards on the table if you’re in the clear. Come through clean. What do you know about this business?” The rancher’s voice was crisp, but not unfriendly. Tug sensed at once a change in attitude toward him. He had come expecting to be put through the third degree. It was possible that was being held in reserve for him. His mind moved cautiously to meet Reed. “What do you mean come clean--confess?” he asked. “Call it what you want to. You claim you didn’t shoot me--that you weren’t in to-night’s job at all. Let’s hear your alibi.” “If you’d care to tell it to us,” Betty suggested gently. The vagrant looked at her. “Why not? I don’t fire wheatfields and I don’t shoot from ambush.” “All right. Let’s have it,” the wounded man said impatiently. “When I left the ranch yesterday, I went to Wild Horse and camped a mile or so out of town. I didn’t care to meet the fellows I’d been with. They blamed me for having them hauled back to the ranch here--thought I’d hurried back to squeal on them. But I was looking for work and I wasn’t going to run away from them. About noon I tramped it into town to see about getting a job. I saw this Cig in a store. He was buying a gun and ammunition for it. He didn’t see me, so I passed by. Later I went back to the store and made sure, by asking the clerk, that Cig had bought the gun.” Betty broke in eagerly. “And you thought he meant to kill Father. So you followed him out here to-night,” she cried.