Who then had dared to drive before him an animal so branded? The boldness of the transgression and the insolent indifference to the enormity of attendant consequences held him for the moment breathless. His attention was once more called to the movements of the men. The steer with which they had been working was led away still moaning with surprise and pain, and another brought forward from the reserve bunch. The branded hip, if there was a brand, was turned away from Williston. The bewildered animal was cleverly roped and thrown to the ground. The man who was plainly directing the affair, he of the drooping hat and lazy shoulders, stepped to the fire. Williston held his breath with the intensity of his interest. The man stooped and took an iron from the fire. It was the end-gate rod of a wagon and it was red-hot. In the act of straightening himself from his stooping position, the glowing iron stick in his right hand, he flung from his head with an easy swing the flopping hat that interfered with the nicety of sight requisite in the work he was about to do, and faced squarely that quiet, innocent-looking spot which held the watching man in its brush; and in the moment in which Williston drew hastily back, the fear of discovery beating a tattoo of cold chills down his spine, recognition of the man came to him in a clarifying burst of comprehension. But the man evidently saw nothing and suspected nothing. His casual glance was probably only a manifestation of his habitual attitude of being never off his guard. He approached the prostrate steer with indifference to any meaning that might be attached to the soft snapping of twigs caused by Williston’s involuntary drawing back into the denser shadows. “Y’ don’t suppose now, do you, that any blamed, interferin’ off’cer is a-loafin’ round where he oughtn’t to be?” said the second man with a laugh. Williston, much relieved, again peered cautiously through the brush. He was confident a brand was about to be worked over. He must see—what there was to see. “Easy now, boss,” said the second man with an officious warning. He was a big, beefy fellow with a heavy, hardened face. Williston sounded the depths of his memory but failed to place him among his acquaintances in the cow country. “Gamble on me,” returned the leader with ready good-nature, “I’ll make it as clean as a boiled shirt. I take it you don’t know my reputation, pard. Well, you’ll learn. You’re all right, only a trifle green, that’s all.” With a firm, quick hand, he began running the searing iron over the right hip of the animal. When he had finished and the steer, released, staggered to its feet, Williston saw the brand clearly. It was J R. If it had been worked over another brand, it certainly was a clean job. He could see no indications of any old markings whatsoever. “Too clean to be worked over a lazy S,” thought Williston, “but not over three bars.”