"Nope, no more booze for me!" declared Pecos virtuously. "You fellers never git me in _here_ no more. You come so dam' near sendin' me to Yuma for somethin' I never done that I'm goin' to be mighty careful what I _do_!" He paused and gazed sombrely out of the window and a new courage—the courage of clean clothes and freedom—drew him on to speak. "This is a hell of a thing you call the law," he observed, "now ain't it? How much of a show does a poor man git in your courts with Shepherd Kilkenny ravin' for his life? I'm goin' to git on a good horse and ride, and ride, and ride, until I git away from that dastard; that's what I'm goin' to do!" The sheriff had laid out the familiar property envelope and was twirling the combination of his safe, but at this last outburst he stopped short. "You'll do nothing of the kind," he said shortly. "I been tryin' for two years to get Ike Crittenden for stealing cows, and I want you to stay in Geronimo County until we get him _cinched_! Are you goin' to do it?" For an instant Pecos met his eye defiantly; then the memory of other cows that he _had_ stolen rose up in his mind and he nodded his head. "Sure!" he said, "I'll be your star witness." "All right then," grumbled the sheriff, turning morosely away from his safe, "but bein' as you seem to be making medicine against the law again I jest want to ask you a few questions. You say the law is a hell of a thing—and it is; I admit it. And the poor man don't have no show against it—that's a fact, too. But here's what I want to know—what you goin' to do about it? How long do you think it will take to change the law so a poor man will have an even break with a rich one, the way things are goin'? 'Bout a thousand years, hey? Well, I call that conservative. But say, do you expect to live that long? No? Think you can hurry it up any by buckin' against the law? Well, what you goin' to do about it—spend your time in jail?" "Well, it ain't right," muttered Pecos, "that's all I got to say. Jest look at your dam' law!" he cried, the memory of his wrongs getting the better of him; "look at _me_! Kep' six months in jail before I could git a trial—d' you call that right?" "Nope," said Boone Morgan calmly, "but what you goin' to do about it? I mean _you_, now! D' you think you can mend matters any by gettin' thrown into jail? I got my eye on you, and that's just where you'll land. Sure, the law is rotten, but what you goin' to _do_ about it?" The coldblooded insistence of the man jangled on Pecos's nerves and made him pass it back. "Well, what _can_ a feller do?" he demanded savagely.