They rose and went back to Pollard's office. And Ben Broderick, who had suggested cigars, was the only one of the three men who rolled his own cigarette, rolled it slowly and with deep thoughtfulness. CHAPTER XVII SUSPICION After all it seemed that for some reason the time was not yet ripe for Cole Dalton to put his rope on "Mr. Badman". For the days ran on smoothly for Buck Thornton, the weeks grew out of them and he rode, unmolested, unsuspicious of any threatened interference, about his own business. He had gone a second time to the dugout at Poison Hole, carrying provisions enough to last Jimmie Clayton several days. Clayton seemed assured that Bedloe would look out for him now and insisted that there was danger of some of the range hands learning of Thornton's trips here. So, for a week he did not ride near the man's hiding place, and when one day he did visit the dugout again there was nothing to show that Clayton had been there and no hint of how or where he had gone. Thornton felt a deep sense of relief, believing that the episode, so far as he was concerned, was closed. Another week and he was close to forgetting Jimmie Clayton altogether. The demands of the routine of range work kept him busy every day, early and late, and as though that were not enough to tax his endurance there came a fresh call upon him. The stage had not been robbed that day he had seen it leaving Dry Town, and he had begun to persuade himself that the epidemic of crime from one end of the county to the other was at an end; that the highwayman had left the country while he could. But now came news of fresh outlawry, news that ran from tongue to tongue of the angered cattle men and miners who demanded more and more loudly that Cole Dalton "get busy". Rumour flew back and forth, indignant, voluble, accusatory. It stacked crime upon crime; it mouthed the names of many men whom the county would be glad to entertain in its empty jail, the names of the three Bedloe boys, of Black Dan, of Long Phil Granger, of certain newcomers to Hill's Corners who, naturally, were to be looked upon with suspicion. It listed the depredations committed during four weeks with a result that was startling. It told of the theft of a herd of steers from Kemble's place; the shooting of Bert Stone and the looting of Hap Smith's mail bags; the robbery of Seth Powers who left the poker table at Gold Run at two o'clock one morning with seven hundred dollars in his overalls and was found at eight o'clock beaten into unconsciousness and with his pockets turned wrong-side out; the stage robbery in which Bill Varney of Twin Dry Diggings had been killed; the robbery of Jed Macintosh in Dry Town. A hundred and fifty miles lay between the most widely removed of the places where these things had happened, but no two of them had occurred within a time too short for a man to ride from one to the other.