"Looks like our friend the bad man was onto his job all right," was the deputy's only comment when Alan had finished. "I'll bet he's making his getaway into the hills mighty immediate," chuckled Baker. "He can't find a bank in the mountainside to deposit that gold any too soon to suit him." "Sho! I'll bet he ain't worried a mite. He's got his arrangements all made, and likely they'll dovetail to suit him. He's put his brand on that gold to stay," answered Farnum confidently. Jack's mild blue eyes rested on him amiably. "Think so, Bob?" "I ain't knockin' you any, Jack. You're all right. But that's how I figure it out, and, by Gad! I'm hopin' it too," Farnum made answer recklessly. Flatray laughed and strolled from the crowded room to the big piazza. A man had just cantered up and flung himself from his saddle. The ranger, looking at him, thought he had never seen another so strikingly handsome an Apollo. Black eyes looked into his from a sun-tanned face perfectly modelled. The pose of the head and figure would have delighted a sculptor. There was a vigor, an unspoken hostility, in the gaze of both men. "Mo'nin", Mr. Deputy Sheriff, one said; and the other, "Same to you, Mr. Norris." "You're on the job quick," sneered the cattle detective. "The quicker the sooner, I expect." "And by night you'll have Mr. Hold-up roped and hog-tied?" "Not so you could notice it. Are you a sheep-herder these days, Mr. Norris?" The gentle irony of this was not lost on its object, for in the West a herder of sheep is the next remove from a dumb animal. "No, I'm riding for the Quarter Circle K Bar outfit. This is the first time I ever took the dust of a sheep in my life. I did it to oblige Mr. Lee." "Oh! To oblige Mr. Lee?" "He wanted to water them, and his herder wasn't here." "Must 'a' been wanting water mighty bad, I reckon," commented Jack amiably. "You bet! Lee feels better satisfied now he's watered them." "I don't doubt it." Norris changed the subject. "You must have burnt the wind getting here. I didn't expect to see you for some hours." "I happened to be down at Yeager's ranch, and one of the boys got me on the line from Mesa." "Picked up any clues yet?" asked the other carelessly, yet always with that hint of a sneer; and innocently Flatray answered, "They seem to be right seldom." "Didn't know but you'd happened on the fellow's trail." "I guess I'm as much at sea as you are," was the equivocal answer. Lee came over from the stable, still wearing spurs and gauntlets. "Howdy, Jack!" he nodded, not quite so much at his ease as usual. "Got hyer on the jump, didn't you?" "I kept movin'." "This shorely beats hell, don't it?" Lee glanced around, selected a smooth boulder, and fired his discharge of tobacco juice at it true to the inch. "Reminds me of the old days. You boys ain't old enough to recall them, but stage hold-ups were right numerous then."