"Lucky morning for us, boys," he said to his punchers. "We've got the White Horse King and got him with the goods two ways from the ace."
"Two ways?" asked the florid horseman, called Rust by his stirrup brother.
Murdock nodded. "The cayuse is one of that bunch they ran off last fall. They've tried brand-blotting, but you can still trace the mark of the Lazy G. And the other count is a hide stripped from one of Miss Flame's steers. The brute's not beyond a bog-skinning job, judging by the size and shape of the evidence."
"What we going to do with him?" asked Roper. "There's rope and to spare for a nice little four-in-hand necktie."
The foreman swung in his saddle for a searching inspection of the prairie. Because of the rolling nature of the region the visibility was not great, but as far as the eye could cover they were alone. He turned to the captive.
"You've got a powerful nerve, hombre, riding this range in daylight, leading a stolen hawse, packed with a butchered hide. Don't you think we're ever on the job, looking after our own? What you got to say for yourself?"
"Nothing until this rope trick is unwound and you take me before your owner. I'll talk to him, one ranchman to another. I was headed for the Lazy G home ranch when you stopped me."
The sergeant's calm speech seemed greatly to amuse Roper and Rust. Smiling Dick's facial muscles were too engaged in a sneer even to trace a smile.
"Having pulled wool on the daughter, you think you can do the same on the old man," he said with heat. "If ever you see Sam Gallegher, which I doubt, you'll find him a different proposition."
So they knew at the home ranch that Flame had seen and talked with him. That much was easily deduced from Murdock's outburst, which seemed tinctured with jealousy. But which of their meetings had she discussed—the one in the railroad land office at Strathconna or that memorable occasion when she had visited so briefly the Open A? That she had said nothing of their experience on the range the previous day seemed likely, else the foreman would not have made so much of the hide which the led horse was carrying.