A strange, inscrutable quality was one of the singular characteristics of Dan McMasters. His face was a coldly serene mask now as he stood beside his horse, looking straight at the tall girl who stood, woman in spite of her man’s garb, her men’s surroundings. If any emotion could be traced on his face it was a shade of pity, of great patience. Concern for his personal safety seemed not to be in his mind. This indifference to danger, this calm, did not lack effect. The men who guarded him suddenly wished they were well out of it. “I a judge? No! I’ve nothing to say,” Taisie choked. “Yes, you have had something to say, and you done said it to me,” rejoined Nabours. “You started something and you got to go through with it. Set down there on that bed roll. You got to tell us all what you told me. As owner of this herd, you’re the main judge. There can’t nobody shirk no right and no duty here. “Set down here, prisoner. It seems to me you’d orto give up your weapons to the court.” “I’ll give Miss Lockhart anything on earth but my guns,” said McMasters evenly. “No one touches them but me.” “I reckon no man here is scared to do what he’s got to do,” remarked Nabours simply. McMasters made no reply. He never had a hand far from his revolvers. He seated himself now so that he could face all his accusers, flat on the ground. His buckled pistol belt lay over one leg. An exact observer must have noted that the toe of one boot rested inside the farther end of the buckled belt, so that proper resistance would be offered in case their owner should snatch at the butts of the heavy guns, both of which were turned ready for convenient grasp. So he sat, facing the jury, facing his Portia—facing what was a far worse thing than death itself to any man of honor. They were a jury of his peers, as nearly as might be, though he had had no hand in their selection. Had he known all the histories of these men he might have challenged for cause Del Williams, trail segundo, who rode right point. He had heard a man or two pass a rude joke or so, although he did not know that as Del Sol ranch hand Del Williams, ten years her senior, had known Burleson Lockhart’s daughter from her infancy. The way of Del Williams’ love was silence and reverence. But Del Williams was of some chivalric strain. That now was to be proved. That his most dangerous rival was this prisoner he knew perfectly well by the primal instincts of man; and now came a certain test. “Del,” began Nabours, turning to his lieutenant as next in authority, “tell us what you know about this man since he come to our house.” “I don’t know anything at all,” answered Williams slowly. “Ef I did I wouldn’t tell it.” His thin, brown-bearded face was set in quiet resolution. Talebearer he would not be. His fellows looked at him stolidly. “Ma’am,” went on the prosecutor, “you told me yore trunk was stole out of yore parlor. It had papers in it—land scrip, God knows how many sections.”