"I know a lawyer here. We'll ask him what to do," the ranchman said.
They found the lawyer at the Athletic Club. West stated the case.
"Your remedy is to replevin. If they fight, you'll have to bring witnesses to prove ownership."
"Bring witnesses from Malapi! Why, I can't do that," said Dave, staggered. "I ain't got the money. Why can't I just take the hawss? It's mine."
"The law doesn't know it's yours."
Dave left much depressed. Of course the thieves would go to a lawyer, and of course he would tell them to fight. The law was a darned queer thing. It made the recovery of his property so costly that the crooks who stole it could laugh at him.
"Looks like the law's made to protect scalawags instead of honest folks,"
Dave told West.
"I don't reckon it is, but it acts that way sometimes," admitted the cattleman. "You can see yoreself it wouldn't do for the law to say a fellow could get property from another man by just sayin' it was his. Sorry, Sanders. After all, a bronc's only a bronc. I'll give you yore pick of two hundred if you come back with me to the ranch."
"Much obliged, seh. Maybe I will later."
The cowpuncher walked the streets while he thought it over. He had no intention whatever of giving up Chiquito if he could find the horse. So far as the law went he was in a blind alley. He was tied hand and foot. That possession was nine points before the courts he had heard before.