“Why should I butt in to help a dirty dog-stealer?” snarled Joel. “Tell me that, Mister. Why--?” “I didn’t steal him!” wailed Colt. “He’s mine. He-- Say, here’s his bill of sale to prove it, friend!” Cautiously, he shoved forth through a cranny in the cushions a crumpled paper. Joel picked it up and read it, at the same time mechanically ordering Treve back from an abortive charge at the disappearing fingers. “H’m!” grunted Joel, after a long pause for thought. “The dog seems to b’long to you, all right. Selling him?” “No!” whined Colt, in a last flare of spirit. “All right,” acquiesced Fenno, with something akin to geniality in his grouchy voice. “I’ll drop around, in a day or two, and see if you’ve changed your mind. Nobody’s li’ble to find you, down here in the chaparral, till then. Watch him, Trevy! Watch him, till I get back.” He started off, up the coulée side. A pitiful howl from the prisoner recalled him. “Hold on!” wheedled Colt. “Don’t leave me here, with this rabid brute. I-- What’ll you gimme for him? I paid--” “I’m not honin’ to hear what you paid; or even what you _say_ you paid,” retorted Joel, scribbling a line or two on the bottom of the bill of sale. “I’ll buy him from you for one dollar in cash an’ for the priv’lege of taking him away; so you c’n crawl out an’ get to a place where they’ll fix up your car an’ lift it to the road again. Take my bid or leave it.” Colt “left” it. He did so, right blasphemously. Joel said nothing, except: “Watch him, Trevy!” and strolled away. He had reached the road before Colt recalled him. “Good!” approved Joel. “Lucky I got my fount’n pen, in this vest. Here’s the bill of sale. Here’s the pen. Here’s the dollar. Sign under where I’ve writ that you’ve sold him to me. It’ll keep you from comin’ back to claim him ag’in. In this neck of the woods, my word’s better’n any stranger’s, like yours. An’ I’m p’pared to depose in court that you sold him to me of your own free will. If you try to steal him a second time, it’ll sure mean jail for you. Not that you wouldn’t be more to home there, than where decent folks is. C’mon, Trevy. Le’s you and me go to breakfast. So long, stranger. There’s a garage jes’ up the road. Not more’n about nine miles. By-by.” As Joel and the collie neared the ranch house, Treve beheld the scrawny cat dozing on the kitchen stoop. In playful mischief, he rushed at her. The cat ran back into the kitchen, spitting blasphemously. Chang appeared on the threshold to learn the cause of his pet’s fright. One look at the approaching dog, and the Celestial grabbed up his cat and ran gibbering from the house. Nor did he stop in his headlong flight from the supposed devil, until he had left the Dos Hermanos ranch far behind him. “We’re out one good Chink,” mused Joel Fenno to himself, as he and Mack prepared their own breakfast, at sunrise. “But we’re _in_ one grand dog. An’ I’m figgerin’ that’s nineteen times better.”