As for the sheriff of Blanco and his men, they trotted on steadily toward the northeast, hour after hour. They crossed the Patos divide, and a few miles beyond took up the trail of their quarry, at the point where Stillson had earlier left it. This they followed rapidly, crossing wide plains of sage brush and cactus throughout the day. They slept in their saddle-blankets that night, and were up and off again by dawn for the second day of steady travel. There were seven men in the posse, three besides Stillson from the Seven Rivers country, employees of the cow men on the Pecos,--slim, brown, thin-featured fellows, who talked little either in the saddle or at the bivouac fire by night. The second night out they spent by a water hole in the desert; and on the morning of the third day they ran into their game, earlier than they had expected. The sheriff, riding in advance, suddenly pulled up at the crest of a low ridge which they were ascending, and came back motioning to his men to remain under cover. "That's the Pinos Altos ranch house just ahead," he explained, "and there's smoke coming out of it. Old Frazee's friendly enough with the Kid, and more'n likely the bunch has stopped in there to get something to eat. Hold on a little till I have a look." He took a pair of field-glasses from his saddle, and crawling to the top of the ridge lay examining the situation. "It's them, all right," he said when he returned. "I know some of the horses. It's the Kid and about three others. They are all saddled up--probably stopped in to cook a meal. We'll get 'em sure. Now, all of you hitch back here, and crawl around to the _arroyo_ below, there. That'll put us within a hundred yards or so of the house." Each man, dismounting, hitched his horse, then quietly ran over the cylinder of his revolver, blew the dust out of the rear sight of his Winchester, tested the magazine, and cleared the breech action. This done, each crept to the place assigned to him. Dan Anderson found himself moving mechanically, dully, with a strange absence of excitement. He almost felt himself looker-on at what other men were doing. For some time Stillson lay behind a little bush at the edge of the gully, peering critically at the house, from which came nothing to indicate that their approach had been discovered. At length, without a word, he slowly raised his short-barrelled rifle and fired. One of the horses hitched to the beam above the door stumbled forward and sank across the opening, blocking it. The bullet had caught it at the butt of the ear, and it fell stone dead, its neck bent up by the shortened rein.