Breathless, the men waited behind. Minutes slipped by, and they began to handle their guns nervously. Then a voice came through the darkness. "All right. Come on!" The horses were unsaddled and then turned into the corral. A guard was set, and the rest trooped into the ranch house. The main room in the house was large and square. At one side, there was a big, blazing fire, and the place was lighted by a stable lantern swung from the ceiling. It showed the untidy, dirty traces of several men. Those who knew Slivers swarmed about him and greeted him. "Darn my ol' bones, I'm sure glad to see yuh!" Flat-foot cried, as he wrung the boy's hand. "Say, spill what this here is about," Snoots begged. "I ain't kiddin' yuh--I don't know. The twins is runnin' this show," Slivers replied. Slivers briefly told them how he had been framed and that, while they did not have sufficient evidence to prove it legally, they were positive that Spur Treadwell was the instigator of the plot. "Sure he was--'cause of Dot. Where we goin' now?" "I dunno. Yuh got to ast the twins; they're runnin' this show," Slivers said, grinning at them. "Them McGills!" "Not any! Jim an' Jack Allen." The two swung about and stared at the famous sheriff and the even more famous outlaw. Then, moved by a common impulse, they drifted toward the fire to have a closer look. "I ain't sayin' Spur an' Boston didn't rustle Double R cows, but how did they get 'em out?" Bill McAllister asked. "Disposin' of several thousan' cows is a darned hard job." Allen took a large piece of rawhide from a package and laid it out where the light from the fire would play on it. They all leaned forward and stared. It had been taken from a Crossbar Double A cow. They frowned and looked questioningly at Allen, who only grinned at them. "Shucks, that's a blotted brand. Darned if it ain't an ol' Double R!" cried Snoots excitedly. "Sure is--plain as the nose on your face!" Bill McAllister exclaimed. "Sure it is--now yuh look at it!" "If them Crossbar Double A cows was supposed to have come from a ranch near here, every one of yuh boys would have spotted them blotted brands pronto," Jim Allen explained. "But seein' they was supposed to have come from an outfit close to three hundred miles to the east of us, an' the cows bein' vented proper, yuh never thinks nothin' about it. An' if your eye did catch anythin' funny, yuh wouldn't have bothered to look close, 'cause yuh was sartin they couldn't be blotted Double R cows." "The skunks!" cried Snoots. "They steal Double R cows, blot the brands, then sell 'em back to the Double R. Pretty slick, I calls it." "That's why we couldn't get track of any big herds bein' sold that was suspicious," Bill McAllister said in disgust. He frowned for a moment and then asked a question: "But we buys only twelve hundred head, an' four times that many was stolen. How does that figger out?" "I'm aimin' to show yuh the rest to-morrow," Jim Allen said.