“Hell’s fire!” was all he said, staring dumbly down into Brennan’s face over the front wheel.  “Where in Sam Hill did you come from?”

“I’m the one to ask questions, son,” returned the little marshal, the vicious blue barrel shining in the sunlight, “and the smarter you answer, the less reason I shall have to hurt yer.  Don’t reach for that gun!  Are you travelling alone?”

Moore nodded, his hands up, but still grasping the reins.

“Then climb down over the wheel.  Jim, take a look under that canvas; Moore, here, is generally a genial sort o’ liar, and we’d better be sure.  All right—­hey?  Then dismount, Matt, and be quick about it.  Now unbuckle that belt, and hand the whole outfit over to Westcott; then we’ll talk business together.”

He shoved his own weapon back into its holster, and faced the prisoner, who had recovered from his first shock of surprise, and whose pugnacious temper was beginning to assert itself.  Brennan read this in the man’s sulky, defiant glance, and his lips smiled grimly.

“Getting bullish, are you, Matt?” he said, rather softly.  “Goin’ ter keep a close tongue in your head; so that’s the game?  Well, I wouldn’t, son, if I was you.  Now, see here, Moore,” and the voice perceptibly hardened, and the marshal’s eyes were like flints.  “You know me, I reckon, an’ that I ain’t much on boys’ play.  You never heard tell o’ my hittin’ anybody just fer fun, did yer?”

There was no answer.

“An’ yer never heard no one say,” went on Brennan, “that I was afraid ter hit when I needed to.  I reckon also yer know what sorter man Jim Westcott is.  Now the two ov us ain’t out here in this damned Shoshone desert fer the fun of it—­not by a jugful.  Get that fact into yer head, son, an’ maybe it’ll bring yer some sense.  Do yer get me?”

“Yes,” sullenly and reluctantly.  “But yer haven’t got nuthin’ on me.”

“Oh, haven’t I?  Well, you shut up like a clam, and find out what I’ve got.  You drove a young woman out here from Haskell night afore last, for Bill Lacy.  Ain’t abduction no crime?  An’ that’s only one count.  I’ve had an eye on you for more’n six months, an’ Lacy’s been makin’ a damn cat’s-paw out of you all that time.  Well, Lacy is playin’ his last hand right now, an’ I’ve got the cards.”  The marshal paused, fully aware that he had struck home, then added quietly:  “It allers struck me, Matt, that naturally you was a pretty decent fellow, but had drifted in with a bad crowd.  I’m offering you now a chance to get straight again.”  He threw back his coat and exhibited his star.  “Yer see, I ain’t just talkin’ ter yer as Dan Brennan—­I’m the law.”

The boy, for he was scarcely more than that in years, shuffled his feet uneasily, and his eyes wandered from Brennan to Westcott.  The look of sullen defiance had vanished.

“Whar is Lacy?” he asked.

“Back in town, but he will be at Badger Springs about dark.  We’ve got him corralled this time.  Yer better climb inter the band-wagon, son; it’s the last call.”