It had been in that bald, gray time between darkness and dawn when Ben Allen and Hollis, riding at the head of the detail of troopers beside the dapper little captain, had arrived at the edge of the butte where Hollis had directed Norton to await his coming. Norton's only comment upon seeing the troopers had been: "Where in hell did them come from?" He told Allen that he had watched where Dunlavey and his men had driven the cattle, and that he would find them concealed in a narrow defile between two hills about a mile on the other side of the Rabbit-Ear. He and Hollis had announced their intention to accompany the troop to the scene, but had been refused permission by the captain. The capture of the thieves had been quite a simple matter. In single file the troopers had descended the slope of the river, crossed a shallow, and clattered up the other side. A mile dash at a gallop had brought them to one end of the defile mentioned by Norton, and in a grove of fir-balsam the captain had deployed his troopers and swooped suddenly down into the defile, surprising several men, who with Dunlavey, were busily at work altering the brands on the cattle they had stolen. There was a fire near the center of the defile, with branding irons scattered about it. The stolen cattle bore various brands. There were perhaps a dozen belonging to the Circle Bar, several from the Pig Pen; others bore the brands of the Three Bar and the Diamond Dot. Proof of Dunlavey's guilt had been absolute. He had made some resistance, but had been quickly overpowered by Allen and the troopers. Then with their prisoners the troops had returned to Dry Bottom. Hollis rode slowly toward the Circle Bar. He was tired--dead tired. When he arrived at the Hazelton cabin the shade on the porch looked so inviting that he dismounted, tied his pony to one of the slender porch columns, and seated himself, leaning wearily against the column to which he had tied his pony. He sat there long, staring at a clump of nondescript weed that fringed the edge of the arroyo near the cabin, his thoughts filled with pictures of incidents that had occurred to him during his stay in the West. Nellie Hazelton appeared in every one of these pictures and therefore he smiled often. He had not liked the country when he had first come here; it had seemed to offer him no field for the pursuit of his ambition. Certainly the raising of cattle had never entered into his scheme of things. Yet he now realized that there was plenty of room in this country for success in this particular industry; all a man had to do was to keep up his end until the law came. And now the law had come and he had been partly responsible for its coming. The realization of this moved his lips into a grim smile.