The trace of a smile hovered about Sheriff Ogden’s lips.

“And I s’pose whoever shot Joe Fyffe come into the cabin afterward and wrote them words on the floor, just to throw suspicion on you?”

Otis raised his head and looked Ogden squarely in the eyes.

“No, Sheriff; Joe Fyffe wrote that. I’ve seen his writing before. This is a little bit shaky, but it’s Joe Fyffe’s writing.”

The Sheriff raised his brows and emitted a low whistle of surprise.

“How do you account for his scribbling that on the floor, then?”

“I tell you I can’t account for it,” Otis admitted. “I own up that it struck me all of a heap. I was as much surprised as you when I saw it. You know I never had any quarrel with Joe Fyffe. We were friends. Why should I kill him?”

“Now, just between you and me, didn’t your daddy say, like all the rest of the cow-men here, that the Gov’ment wasn’t going to collect a penny of grazing-fees, and that the ranger ought to be run out of the country?”

Otis, who had regained his color after the first shock of the discovery, paled visibly again at the Sheriff’s question. He hesitated an instant before he answered.

“Why, yes,” he retorted, “there’s no use denying that. You know as well as I that the Government rangers aren’t any too popular in the cattle country. But you admit that all the cow-men dislike the rangers. Why should that indicate any motive on my part?”

“I aint saying it does,” Ogden remarked. “I’m asking for information. Now, isn’t it true, Otis, that just because you was particularly friendly with Joe Fyffe, you thought you could talk to him better than anyone else? Wasn’t that the reason you come over here last night—not with any notion of killing him, mind you—but just to tell him he’d better clear out, before somethin’ happened?

“I’m supposin’ that you came here to do him a service—to warn him to git out before there was trouble, ’cause I know you and him was pretty good friends. Now, Otis, tell me straight—wasn’t that about the way things sized up? One word led to another. Maybe he pulled a gun on you first, and you had to do it, or get killed yourself. If you’ll say it was self-defense, now, maybe that’ll go a long ways with the jury. Between you and me, haven’t I hit it about right?”

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