'Now what do you want?' he demanded. 'Your story has to be good after waking me up in the middle of the night.'
'We want to borrow yore car for a joyride,' Hal told him, eyes twinkling impudently.
'What for?' he snapped. 'You have a car of your own.'
'We have and we haven't,' the cattleman explained. 'Our idea is that four or five men with guns are hanging around it waiting for us.'
'What have you been up to — that burglary you were hinting about?'
'We took your advice and dropped that idea.' Hal grinned. 'All they can send you to jail for is being accessory to a hold-up after the fact. Probably you won't get more than a couple of years if you throw yourself on the mercy of the court.'
'Stop talking in riddles and spill your story,' the banker ordered.
Hal told him briefly the tale of the night's adventures. The comment of Hunter was tart. 'After the Lord made you, I hope he broke the mold. I've seen a lot of hella-milers in my time, but you take the cake.'
This criticism did not quite express Hunter's real feeling. He had spent an adventurous youth, and young Stevens carried him back to the carefree days when he had lived in the open and spent months in the hills on the trail of horse thieves and bandits. As a solid citizen it was his duty to disapprove of his friend's audacious methods of countering crime. Arizona was a civilized state, and this reversion to the wild days of its territorial status was outdated. Yet he felt a queer lift at being dragged even into the outskirts of such jeopardy. Vicariously at least he could experience for an hour the old untamed frontier license.
'I'm a Government officer,' Arnold reminded their host.
'And you know very well that Washington would repudiate such high-handed ways of getting evidence if it turned out these men you held up were not guilty.'
Hal pulled from his pocket the strip of hide he had skinned from the dead steer. 'We haven't had time to examine our evidence yet,' he said. 'Maybe we have been holding up good honest citizens and are headed for the penitentiary.'
From another pocket he took a magnifying glass. The bit of hide he put on a table with a newspaper under it. He scanned deliberately both the hairy and the inner sides of the hide patch they had risked their lives to get, after which he handed the glass to Arnold. Ranny took a long look, and so in turn did the banker.
'The brand has been doctored, I think,' Hunter said at last, 'but I don't know whether a jury would accept that as proved.'
'It would after it had looked at magnified photographic charts,' Hal said confidently. 'The difference between the old marking and the new would show very clearly.'
'Whose brand is this 0 B in a Box?' Hunter asked.
'We'll find that out tomorrow, but I'll give you ten to one that it is registered in the name of one of Black's gang,' Hal replied. 'The original brand is a J Bar. It belongs to an Easterner named Walsh who bought out an oldtimer last year.'
He took the magnifying glass a second time and inspected the markings on the hide. His trained eye saw clearly that the J of the first branding had cut deeper into the hide than the 
which had been added to make the new brand 
.
Hunter said abruptly, 'I think you boys had better get into that sport car of mine and light out of here before these fellows find you.'
'That's in perfect agreement with our wishes,' Arnold replied.
'You know too much for your own safety. They dare not rest now until they have stopped you from talking.'
'If you will take care of Exhibit A, we'll leave it with you,' Hal said, indicating the strip of hide. 'It will be safer in a deposit box in your bank vault than with us.'
'I'll take care of it,' Hunter promised. 'Now get going as soon as I have given you the car keys — and don't stop until you have plenty of friends around you.'
'Yes, sir,' Hal promised meekly.
'No more damn foolishness. You have your evidence now, and it isn't worth a nickel if you let these scoundrels shoot you down.'
Hunter watched them drive away. He liked this cool young ranchman who had the gift of taking danger in his stride, and with it the aplomb to shrug off the experience as all in the day's work.
As he was walking along the upstairs hall to his bedroom, a girl of about nineteen poked her head out of a door he was passing. 'For Pete's sake, who were they and what did they want in the middle of the night?' she demanded.
'Go to bed, young woman,' her father told her. 'Their business was very private.'
'Is that so?' she retorted saucily and somewhat sleepily. 'And it's none of my business, of course, even though I saw them driving away in my car.'
'If you'll look up the records at the courthouse you'll find it isn't your car,' he said, and continued to his room.
'It's practically mine,' she flung after him. 'And I can tell you one thing. They won't get far. The tank registered empty last night, and I didn't have my coupons with me.'
Hunter was just closing his door, but he jerked it open fast. 'What's that — no gas in the car?'
'Not a pint. But of course they can get it filled — if they happen to notice. I hope they stall two miles from a filling station. Serve them right for having the nerve to wake us up at this hour.' She yawned, stretched, gave him a mocking 'Good night, darling,' and went back to bed. Her tousled head had scarcely hit the pillow before she was again asleep.
But the information she had tossed off so airily interfered effectually with any more sleep for her father. Instead of having helped young Stevens and his friend, he had increased their danger by giving them a car they could not use. Even if they discovered at once that the tank was empty, they could not get it filled at this time of day.
CHAPTER 29
Nuney Makes a Decision
THE NEWS CARRIED by the two night guards to their companions brought them out of their beds and into a huddle. This was disturbing information. Their foes had outwitted them and obtained evidence the rustlers had trucked fifty miles to put in their possession.
'So you handed over yore guns like a pair of lambs and let them skin the brand off one of the critters,' jeered Fenwick.
'That's right,' agreed Nuney. 'We sat there with a six-shooter at our heads and liked it.' He added gently, 'The way you did when Stevens took you to the calaboose.'
Fenwick glared at him. 'Don't get funny with me, fellow,' he warned, the words coming from between set teeth.
'Now, boys,' interrupted Cash Polk, 'let's not fuss about what can't be helped.' He picked up a rifle from the corner and gave it to Nuney. 'You may be needing this.'
'No two-bit cowpuncher can ride me and get away with it,' Fenwick growled.
'Bill wouldn't try it,' Cash said. 'Let's get down to brass tacks. First off, these fellows can't get out of town because Chad ripped the wires loose under the hood of their car. But they will come back to sneak the car away, and we had better be there to see they don't.'
'Chad is down there watching. He'll let us know if they come.' A little man usually called Doc made the suggestion.
'Two more of you boys had better go help Chad.' Polk looked around and selected Nuney and Doc. 'Make sure if they come they stay,' he concluded softly, his beady black eyes shuttling from one to the other.
'Just what do you mean by that?' Nuney asked.
'He means to fill them full of lead — before they take yore gun away from you again,' sneered Brick.
'Nothing doing,' answered Nuney bluntly, his steady gaze on Fenwick. 'I'm no killer. In a fair fight I'll take my chance, but—'