“Clew? Damn my soul, Johnny, you talk like deeteckteeve.” “_Companero_, you string along with me. We’re goin’ to see the sights before this thing’s over.” Tony went to sleep; not so Johnny. He brought forth the photograph which he had found, and sat for half an hour studying it; trying to whip his mind into finding some likeness in it to some one he knew. “That’s all I got,” he murmured. “It’s got to tell me somethin’.” He placed the picture on the bed before him, and bent over it, his eyes screwed into a squint. Minutes slipped by unnoticed. Something vaguely reminiscent about the photograph began to torture him. Try as he would, he could not say what it was that was playing a sort of mental hide and go seek with him. At times he wondered if he were not the prey of his own desires. And yet, a little voice persisted within him. There was something here that stirred memories! When it came to him, it came suddenly. His face went white. “My God!” he whispered, clutching the picture. “The thing around that kid’s neck is the locket Molly Kent wears!” From staring at the picture he turned to the sleeping Tony. He even started to arouse him, but thought better of it. “No,” he said to himself. “I’ll keep this secret. This _is_ a clew!” He tried to argue that the child in the picture bore some resemblance to Kent’s daughter; but he could not convince himself. “This picture might be a boy’s, for all that,” he muttered. “Looks somethin’ like the dead man, too.” He gave up puzzling his brain over it, and kicking off his boots, made ready for bed. The locket in the picture and the one Molly wore were the same. That was enough. How she came by it, he’d try to learn tomorrow. Maybe old Jackson had bought it for her. Jackson Kent! That started a new line of thought. Johnny became wide awake. Kent had fired him; the old man had seemed deaf to certain facts; and now this locket of Molly’s! A broad-side struck Johnny Dice. “My God!” he exclaimed loud enough to wake up his pal. “Is that why he shut me up? Did Jackson Kent kill that man?” CHAPTER VI OUTSIDE THE LAW Johnny Dice lay abed the following morning until half past seven o’clock, shamelessly reveling in his freedom from toil. At five Hobe and the others, Tony included, had trooped down to breakfast. Fifteen minutes later the Diamond-Bar boys had headed for the shipping pens to resume where they had left off the previous evening. Tony, helpless with nothing to do, waited with growing impatience for the appearance of the prodigal. Specters of doubt, tantalizing ghosts of indecision troubled the sleeping Mr. Dice. His pugnacious face wore a frown. Every now and then his mouth would straighten and his jaw would shoot out to an alarming prominence. Maybe a dramatic gesture with his hand would follow. Johnny seemed continually to lose the decision in this silent fighting, for he would try it first on one side and then on the other.