“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.
“Ain’t yuh afraid Boston will be comin’ a-tearin’ back here?” some one asked.
“Not any. He an’ his whole gang left here just afore yuh gents arrived, an’ where they was a-goin’ is a good fifteen mile from here, so I don’t figger they’ll be back to-night,” Allen explained. “I figgered it was worth the chance for yuh to sleep dry to-night, ’cause yuh sure are goin’ to do a lot of scrappin’ to-morrow.”
For some time further, the punchers discussed the various phases of the rustling, and then they followed Allen’s example and curled up by the fire.