new brand the Monkey-wrench ([Illustration: [++] Brand in the shape of a monkey-wrench]). If he had any qualms as to the morality of this last act Pecos did not let them interfere with his industry in any way. The ethics of the cattle business will not stand too stern a scrutiny, even at this late date, and the joke on Old Crit was so primordial in its duplicity that it obscured the finer moral issues. Like many another cowman of those early days Pecos Dalhart had made his start with the running iron and with luck and judgment he might yet be a cattle king. CHAPTER IV THE SHOW-DOWN It is a great sensation to feel that you are a prospective cattle king, but somehow when Pecos Dalhart rode back to Verde Crossing his accustomed gaiety had fled. There were no bows and smiles for Marcelina, no wordy exchanges with the garrulous Babe—there is a difference, after all, between stealing cows for eighty dollars a month and stealing for yourself, and while a moralist might fail to see the distinction it showed in its effect on Pecos's spirits. "I'm goin' down to Geronimo," he grumbled, after an uneasy hour at the store, during which he had tried in vain the cheering power of whiskey; "you can tell Crit I'll be back to-morrow night for my time," and without volunteering any further information he rode down to the river, plunged across the rocky ford and was swallowed up in the desert. Two days later he returned, red-eyed and taciturn, and to all Babe's inquiries he observed that the Geronimo saloons were the worst deadfalls west of the Rio Grande, for a certainty. His mood did not improve by waiting, and when Crittenden finally rode in after his long day's work he demanded his money so brusquely that even that old-timer was startled. "Well, sho, sho, boy," he soothed, "don't git excited over nothin'! To be sure I'll pay you your money." He went down into his overalls with commendable promptitude, but Pecos only watched him in surly silence. Something in his pose seemed to impress the shifty cowman; he drew forth a roll of bills and began to count them out, reluctantly. "Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred—there it is—now what's all this racket about?" "Nothin'," responded Pecos, stowing away the greenbacks, "but you can git somebody else to finish up that job." "Well, here," snapped the cowman, warming up a little as Dalhart cooled down, "don't I git no accountin' for this month's work? How many did you brand and what you quittin' for?" "I branded sixty-seven cows, fifty-five calves, and thirty two-year-olds," replied the cowboy, boldly, and Crittenden, not knowing in what iron they were branded, chuckled gleefully.