So, in Leach Sharkey’s presence, Thurston, as he walked to and fro, spoke his thoughts aloud. “Damn all pretty faces, anyhow. First and last they have cost me a fine sum. And now it is a pretty face that has cost me my boy’s life. It’s hell, that’s what it is. But I will have my revenge. I’ll hang Dick Willoughby with my own hands if necessary—even if it is the last act of my life I’ll have his neck stretched for him.” He was glaring down at the sleuth, and the pause seemed to call for some reply. “Well, he’s given us the slip for the present,” Sharkey ventured. Then he caught the gathering fury in the other’s eyes, and hurriedly went on: “But there is no question in the world we’ll run the scoundrel down. I myself will shoot him like the dog he is the moment I lay my two eyes on him.” “Well, don’t waste your breath telling me you are going to do it,” growled Thurston. “Hunt him down. Take all the money you need. Get all the men you can. Search every canyon. Guard every road out of the hill country. And don’t be misled by that damn fool talk about the White Wolf of which you’ve been telling me. That cursed outlaw is dead—dead as a herring. I ran the story of his death to earth—stood on his very grave in the potters’ field at Seattle. Dick Willoughby’s the outlaw now. Get him at any cost. Get him, or, by God, lose your own job, Leach Sharkey. Do you follow me?” “Oh, I follow you,” replied the sleuth, a sardonic smile still further exposing the teeth that were the most prominent feature of his face and at all times gave him a hyena-like appearance. “I’ll get him, make no mistake, Mr. Thurston. Just draw me that check, and I’ll have twenty more men out on the range before morning.” At the store, Dick Willoughby’s disappearance was for days the sole topic of conversation. One morning Tom Baker and Buck Ashley were gossiping together. “What beats me,” remarked the storekeeper, “is that Chester Munson wears such a spry look. He was Dick’s closest chum, yet he don’t seem to be one bit anxious.” “Oh, he’s got the word, make no mistake,” replied Tom. “Although the lieutenant is as close as wax, he knows Dick’s all right, for sure. And I’m told that up at La Siesta, where Dick has his girl, you know, they’re still a-playin’ the pianner and the fiddle all the time. Mark my words—there’s been some wireless telephone at work. Munson don’t worry, his lady friends don’t worry, so I begin to think we’re a couple of derned old fools to fret ourselves on Dick’s account.” “It’s about Pierre Luzon I’m frettin’ most,” Buck Ashley rejoined. “To think that that damned Frenchman should have done us in the eye, got clean away and robbed us of our share of the buried treasure—that’s what worries me, Tom Baker. And you’ll allow now you made a mess of things by not havin’ the old convict shackled to the bedpost.” “A mess of things!” cried the sheriff, rising anger in his voice and eyes. “You won’t keep your mouth shut till I teach you—”