After personally attending the Judge and Patterson to jail, the G. M. A. T. felt that the capture of minor offenders might safely be left to the government. So they routed out Tillotson’s lawyers at the unseemly hour of 4 A.M., broke the news gently, and haled them off to jail for consultation with Tillotson. Congratulation and explanation was over: the cumbrous machinery of the law was fairly under way (creakingly, despite liberal oiling), and a gorgeous breakfast for all hands was being brought into the jail from a nearby restaurant, when the jailer ushered Aughinbaugh into the presence of the friends in council. He sauntered in with the most insouciant and complacent air imaginable. El Paso’s best cigar was perked up at a jaunty angle from the corner of his mouth; it was plain he was particularly well pleased with himself. “Hello! where’s your prisoner?” said the firm in chorus. Aughinbaugh removed the cigar and flicked the ash. “Mac? He got away,” he said indifferently. “Got away!” shrieked the senior lawyer. “Gagged, bound hand and foot, tied to the bed--and got away!” Aughinbaugh surveyed him placidly, and waved his cigar in graceful explanation. “Yon was a verra intelligent pairson!” said he. THE END HIT THE LINE HARD HIT THE LINE HARD Chapter I Neighbor Jones gazed meditatively from his room in the Saragossa House: an unwelcome guest buzzed empty boastings in his ear. He saw, between narrowed lids, the dazzle of bright tracks, the Saragossa Station, the bright green of irrigated fields beyond, merged to a vague and half-sensed background. The object of his attentive consideration was nearer at hand, by the west-most track--a long, squat warehouse, battered and dingy red. And from this shabby beginning, while the bore droned endlessly on, Neighbor Jones wove romance for his private delight. The warehouse was decked all about by a wide, high platform. A low-pitched roof reached far out beyond the building to overhang this platform, so that the whole bore a singular resemblance to Noah’s Ark of happy memory. A forlorn and forgotten ark: the warped shingles, the peeling, blistered paint, the frayed and splintered planks, were eloquent of past prosperity and of change, neglect and decay. The gable end was crowded with huge lettering of whitish gray. When those gray letters were white the sign had read: BROWN, ALMANDARES & COMPANY GENERAL MERCHANDISE BEST PRICES FOR WOOL AND HIDES Long ago the firm name had been painted out; but the old letters broke dim and ghostly through, persisted stubborn under the paint that would blot them, hid and haunted beyond the letters of a later name: MARTIN BENNETT Bennett had been the Company.