"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light."
"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. "Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!"
"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him sternly.
"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other doggedly.
"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the trail to Yeager's Spur."
"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: "It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell you I'm no rustler."
Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom.
Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance to the cañon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that."
"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler."
"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered.