"I don't reckon anyone ast you to stick your gab in this here affair?" demanded the sheriff of Norton. "No," returned Norton, drawling, "no one asked me. But while we're handin' out compliments we might as well all have a hand in it. It strikes me that when a man's runnin' a law shop he ought to run her." "I reckon I'll run her without any help from you, Norton!" snapped the sheriff. "Why, sure!" agreed the latter, his gaze level as his eyes met the sheriff's, his voice even and sarcastic. "But I'm tellin' you that this man's my friend an' if there's any more of them compliments goin' to be handed around I'm warnin' you that you want to hand them out soft an' gentle like. That's all. I reckon we c'n now proceed." The sheriff's face bloated poisonously. He flashed a malignant glance at Hollis. "Well," he snapped, "what's the charge?" "I have already told you," returned Hollis. "It is stealing cattle." "How stealin' them?" demanded the Sheriff truculenty. "Changing the brand," Hollis informed him. He related how Ace and Weary had come upon the prisoner while the latter was engaged in changing his brand to the Circle Cross. "They see him brandin'?" questioned the sheriff when Hollis had concluded. Hollis told him that the two men had come upon Greasy after the brand had been applied, but that the cattle bore the Circle Bar ear-mark, and that Greasy had built a fire and that branding irons had been found in his possession--which which he had tried to hide when discovered by the Circle Bar men. "Then your men didn't really see him doin' the brandin'?" questioned Watkins. Hollis was forced to admit that they had not. Watkins smiled sarcastically. "I reckon you're runnin' a little bit wild," he remarked. "Some of your stock has been rebranded an' you're chargin' a certain man with doin' it--only you didn't see him doin' it." He turned to Greasy. "What you got to say about this, Greasy?" he demanded. Greasy grinned blandly at Hollis. "This guy's talkin' through his hat," he sneered. "I ain't allowin' that I branded any of his cattle." Watkins smiled. "There don't seem to be nothin' to this case a-tall--not a-tall. There ain't nobody goin' to be took into custody by me for stealin' cattle unless they're ketched with the goods--an' that ain't been proved so far." He turned to Hollis. "You got anything more to say about it?" he demanded. "Only this," returned Hollis slowly and evenly, "I have brought this man here. I charge him with stealing my cattle. To use your term--he was caught 'with the goods.' He is guilty. If you take him into custody and bring him to trial I shall have two witnesses there to prove what I have already told you. If you do not take him into custody, it is perfectly plain that you are deliberately shielding him--that you are making a joke of the law." Watkins's face reddened angrily. "Mebbe I'm makin' a joke of it----" he began.