Gambling in itself had not been prohibited by statute at that time in Wyoming, though its most profitable side diversions--such as dropping paralyzing poisons in a man's drink, snatching his money and clearing out with it, cracking him on the head with a leaden billet, or standing him up at the point of a pistol and rifling him--were, as now, discountenanced under the laws. But what profit is there in gambling if the hangers-on, the cappers, the steerers, and the snatchers of crumbs in all cannot find protection under the flag and its institutions? That was what the gamblers' trust of Comanche wanted to know. In order to insure it they had the city incorporated, and put in a good, limber-wristed bartender as chief of police. It was to that dignitary that Dr. Slavens' friends had come with their appeal for assistance. There was discouragement in the very air that surrounded the chief, and in the indifference with which he heard their report. He looked at Agnes with the slinking familiarity of a man who knows but one kind of woman, and judges the world of women thereby. She colored under the insult of his eyes, and Bentley, even-tempered and slow to wrath as he was, felt himself firing to fighting pitch. "Well," said the chief, turning from them presently with a long gape, terminating in a ructatious sigh, "I'll shake out all the drunks in the calaboose this afternoon, and if your friend's among 'em I'll send him on over to you. No harm could happen to him here in Comanche. He'd be as safe here, night or day, as he would be playin' tennis in the back yard at home." The chief mentioned that game with scorn and curling of the lip. Then he gazed out of the window vacuously, as if he had forgotten them, his mashed cigar smoking foully between his gemmed fingers. Bentley looked at Agnes in amazed indignation. When he squared off as if to read his mind to the chief she checked him, and laid her hand on his arm with a compelling pressure toward the door. "That man's as crooked as the river over there!" he exclaimed when they had regained the sunlight outside the smoke-polluted office. "That's plain," she agreed; "and it doesn't mitigate my fears for the doctor's safety in the least." "Walker and I were wrong in our opinion; something has happened to Slavens," said Bentley. "Your opinion?" she questioned. "Well, I should say Walker's rather," he corrected. "I only concurred weakly along toward the end. Walker has held out all the time that Slavens went out to hold a celebration all by himself." "No; he didn't do that," said she calmly. "I thought so for a little while this morning, too. But I know he didn't. Do you suppose----" She stopped, as if considering something too extravagant to utter. "Suppose?" he repeated. "He talked a good deal about going into the cañon to clear up the mystery of that newspaperman and earn the reward," said she. Bentley shook his head. "He'd hardly start at night and without preparation."