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"What's he arrested for, Taggart? What did he do?"

Before the man had gotten his ten words out, the sheriff's keen eyes found him where his lesser form was half hidden by the bigger men in front of him.

"I hear you, Bill Cary," he said quietly. "And the only reason I'm answering a regular none-of-your-business question is that all of you other boys that have stampeded in here on a wild say-so will be worrying your heads off until you know what's what. I pulled Joe on two counts: First for disturbing the peace."

An uproar of laughter boomed out at that and even Jim Taggart smiled. But he went on evenly:

"Of course that was a blind until I got the goods on the second count. And I only got that a few minutes ago. This ain't any trial, exactly, and still I guess it will save trouble if you know all about it. So I'll let Cliff Shipton step up and testify."

Suddenly he stepped aside and a tall, hawk-faced man who had been holding his place at Gallup's side, just behind Taggart's massive bulk, stepped forward. Men craned their necks and crowded closer; nearly all of them knew Cliff Shipton. He was a Gallup man and always had been a Gallup man; for the last two years he had been in charge of a profitless "gold-mine" which Gallup pretended to operate at the head of the Lost Woman's Gulch; a property which, it was generally conceded in and about Big Pine, was merely the proverbial hole in the ground intended for sale to a fool.