"I don't know whether I can spare one or not. Yuh see, it's some dangerous ter take sides in this town." "I don't want you to take my side. All I want is to complete a business transaction with you. I want you to hire me a wagon and team for a day. You understand what I want?" "Yes, but, yuh see, that would be considered as givin' succor ter ther enemy." "I don't understand why." "It's this way: Judge Harris owns this stable an' rents it to me by ther month. He could kick me out to-morrow if he wanted to. He's a queer dick, an' him an' Burk, what, I understand, was at ther Mowbray house yesterday, and what had ter run away, is as close as two sheets o' sticky fly paper." "He is, eh?" "Yes; an' the coroner, the jailer, the mayor, the sheriff, an' everybody else what has any power er authority, is in the same boat. They all hang together, an' they're all friends o' Mr. Mowbray. Lord Mowbray they calls him." "Ah, ha!" thought Ted. "If that is the case, it behooves us to get out of town and to Bubbly Well with our property as soon as we can." After some further talk Ted was still unable to get the old man to rent him a wagon. Then he changed his tactics. "Well," he said, in a firm voice, "if you won't rent me the wagon and team I'll be obliged to confiscate it for the United States." "Eh, how is that?" "I said I would take it for the uses of the United States. Come, roll it out and hitch up before I have to resort to violence." "I don't know you, bub. I'm from Missouri. You'll have to show me." Ted exposed his star of authority. "Does that go?" he asked. "Because if it don't, this will." His revolver was out of its holster like a flash, much to the surprise of the liveryman, who had been somewhat of a bad man himself in his day, and gun plays were not uncommon at Rodeo. He gazed mildly into the bore of the big, silver-mounted forty-five, and then murmured: "It goes, pal." CHAPTER XX. KNIFE AND FANG. Several days had passed since the fight at Helen Mowbray's house, and Ted Strong and the broncho boys were again at the Bubbly Well Ranch. The remains of Helen Mowbray had been laid to rest near the major's ranch house in a little lot surrounded by a low fence, and her treasure was safely stored away in the safe in the major's bedroom. The period of their visit to the ranch house was past, but still they stayed to help the major to get word of his brother Frederic Caruthers, alias Fancy Farnsworth, alleged to be the worst man in Arizona. Where he might be none knew, of course, but Ted was of the opinion that he was still somewhere in Arizona, and not far away, either. He could not have told why he believed so, but he had one of his "hunches" to that effect, and believed it as surely as if he knew it for a fact. Ted had seen his hunches turn out true so often that he did not attempt now to distrust them.