“Branding irons!” Roy ejaculated. “Branding irons, as sure as you’re a foot high! Can you beat that?” “They sure are!” Teddy cried excitedly. Bending over, he picked one up. “Roy! See here!” The older boy looked eagerly at the object in his brother’s hand. It was a square piece of iron fastened to a wooden handle, and between the handle and the plate was a piece of fluted and corrugated metal, to allow rapid radiation of heat and prevent the burning of the wood. Teddy turned the iron over. On the face, in raised characters, was marked: 8 X 8. “Pete Ball’s brand!” Roy exclaimed. “Now what--” “If they had a sign on the door, ‘Horse Thieves,’ they couldn’t tell us plainer than this,” Teddy interrupted. “But this is an 8 X 8 branding iron,” put in Roy slowly. “They wouldn’t want to brand the cattle they stole with the same brand.” Instead of replying, Teddy picked up another one of the irons. This had a small circle at each end and four curves between. “I’ll bet this is a fake branding iron!” cried the younger ranch lad triumphantly. “Don’t you see, Roy? They can stamp this fake iron directly over the 8 X 8 and that will make an entirely different brand, having a three-leafed clover at each end with a curved rope uniting them.” “Say, I’ve heard something about that before!” came quickly from the older boy. “Don’t you remember dad’s talking once about the Rope and Clover brand which was used by some rustlers in upper Montana? I’ll bet this is the same kind of outfit!” “It certainly looks that way!” The two brothers examined the fake iron and the real one with care, and then Teddy turned to his brother. “The question is--what is to be done?” he demanded. “Well, what can we do? Seems like it’s raining harder than ever now. Even if we did cut for home and tell the gang what we’ve found, what good would it do? It’s a cinch those rustlers won’t come back when they know we’re watching this cabin.” “But do they have to know that? Why can’t we get the bunch, sneak back, and lay for those horse and cattle thieves? They’ll return sooner or later, because their guns and stuff are here.” Roy thought for a moment. “It’s a chance,” he said finally. “Of course, they may come back while we’re gone and cart their things away. But we’ve got to risk that. The only thing is, if we stayed here ourselves we’d be sure to see them and maybe we could follow them to their hiding place where they keep the cattle. Then we’d have them cold--our horses too. That is, if this is the same bunch that stole Star and Flash and General.”