"But Father wouldn't sign. He ought to know that." "Not through fear your father wouldn't. But if Fendrick could get at him some way he might put down his John Hancock. With this trouble of Sam still unsettled and the Tin Cup hold-up to be pulled off he might sign." "If we could only have Fendrick arrested--" "What good would that do? If he's guilty he wouldn't talk. And if he is holding your father somewhere in the hills it would only be serving notice that we were getting warm. No, I'm for a still hunt. Let Cass ride around and meet his partners in this deal. We'll keep an eye on him all right." "Maybe you're right," Kate admitted with a sigh. CHAPTER VII ANONYMOUS LETTERS Sheriff Bolt, though a politician, was an honest man. It troubled him that Cullison's friends believed him to be a partisan in a matter of this sort. For which reason he met more than half way Curly's overtures. Young Flandrau was in the office of the sheriff a good deal, because he wanted to be kept informed of any new developments in the W. & S. robbery case. It was on one of those occasions that Bolt tossed across to him a letter he had just opened. "I've been getting letters from the village cut-up or from some crank, I don't know which. Here's a sample." The envelope, addressed evidently in a disguised hand, contained one sheet of paper. Upon this was lettered roughly, "Play the Jack of Hearts." Flandrau looked up with a suggestion of eagerness in his eyes. "What do you reckon it means?" he asked. "Search me. Like as not it don't mean a thing. The others had just as much sense as that one." "Let's see the others." "I chucked them into the waste paper basket. One came by the morning mail yesterday and one by the afternoon. I'm no mind reader, and I've got no time to guess fool puzzles." Curly observed that the waste paper basket was full. Evidently it had not been emptied for two or three days. "Mind if I look for the others?" he asked. Bolt waved permission. "Go to it." The young man emptied the basket on the floor and went over its contents carefully. He found three communications from the unknown writer. Each of them was printed by hand on a sheet of cheap lined paper torn from a scratch pad. He smoothed them out and put them side by side on the table. This was what he read: HEARTS ARE TRUMPS WHEN IN DOUBT PLAY TRUMPS PLAY TRUMPS _NOW_ There was only the one line to each message, and all of them were plainly in the same hand. He could make out only one thing, that someone was trying to give the sheriff information in a guarded way. He was still puzzling over the thing when a boy came with a special delivery letter for the sheriff. Bolt glanced at it and handed the note to Curly. "Another _billy doo_ from my anxious friend."