code was so simple

  "I don't know. Oh, I don't understand."   A shadow of pain came into the halfbreed's face. "I wudn't try then," he said shortly. And Mahon remembered that the Inspector had advised the same.   When they had been riding a long time the half-breed spoke wistfully. "I wasn't rustlin', Boy. All I did was to take from Duchy and Bilsy some o' the horses they rustled. If I hadn't, yuh wudn't 'a' seed 'em ever again. I've got 'em all back--all I took from them. . . . An' I ain't chargin' nothin' fer it neither."   Mahon thought it all out laboriously.   "But you stole them again from Torrance."   "Sure! Torrance knowed they was stole. He wudn't 'a got any other kind fer ten bucks. Yuh don't call that rustlin'?"   Mahon smiled--the halfbreed's code was so simple.   "Tell it to the Inspector like that," he pleaded.   "Sure I will! An' I know dang well he'll see."     Inspector Barker lifted frowning eyes to the opening door. Stiff, waiting for permission to enter, Sergeant Mahon stood looking at him from the hall. A brown hand reached forward from behind and pushed him aside. And there was the grinning face of the half-breed.