"I guess this isn't a case for a lawyer," he says. "The gentleman might give us a point or two, but we'd prefer you took charge. You see," he says to Burton and me earnestly; "there's been a heap of skul-duggery around here lately--horse-stealin', maimin' cattle, and the like--till we're dead sick of it. This bucco made the most bare-faced try you ever heard of--'twas like stealin' the whiskers right off your face--and us fellers in my neighbourhood, old man and all, have saw fit to copper the deal from the soda-card. We ain't for doin' this man; we're for breaking up the play--'tain't a case of law; it's a case of livin'--so if you'll oblige, Colonel?" "All right, sir; I'll do the best I can. Who accuses this man?" "I," says a straightforward-looking young man of about twenty odd. "Step up, please, and tell us." "Why, it's like this," he says. "I'm ranchin' lone-hand down on Badger. There's the wife and two kiddies, and a job for a circus-man to make both ends meet--piecin' out a few cattle and a dozen hogs with a garden patch. All I got between me and a show-down is my team. Well, this feller comes along, played out, and asks for a drink of water. My wife's laid up--too darn much hard work for any woman--and I've got Jerry saddled by the fence, to ride for the doctor. Other horse is snake bit and weavin' in the stable with a leg like a barrel. I goes in to get the water, and when I comes out there's this sucker dustin' off with the horse. Then I run over to C-bar-nine and routs the boys out. We took out after him, corrallin' him in a draw near the Grindstones. That's about all." "Make any fight?" I asked. "Naw!" says the man, disgusted. "I was wanting to put my hands on him, but he comes in like a sick cow--seemed foolish." "How foolish?" "Oh, just stared at us. We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: 'Hello!' I'd a 'hello'd' him if the boys hadn't stopped me." [Illustration: We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: "Hello!"] "Prisoner," I says, "this looks bad. I don't know where you come from, but you must have intelligence enough to see that this man's wife's life might have depended on that horse. You know we're straggled so out here that a horse means something more than so much a head. Why did you do this? Your actions don't seem to hang together." The poor cuss changed face for the first time. He swallered hard and turned to his accuser. "Hope your lady didn't come to no harm?" says he. "Why, no thankee; she didn't," says the other lad. "'Bliged to you for inquirin'." There was a stir in the rest of the crowd. The prisoner had done good work for himself without knowing it. That question of his proved what I thought--he was no bad man. Something peculiar in the case. Swinging an eye on the crowd, I saw I could act. I went forward and laid my hand on his shoulder, speaking kind and easy.