"I reckon we'll have to put the wedding off a few days, Hetty," he said, as he bade her good-by. "I've got to leave on the jump. There's no saying when I'll get back, either." It was nearly midnight and very dark. Hetty toyed with his horse's mane. She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat. "All right," she said. "Take care of yourself, Lafe." The sheriff kissed her and set out. He entered Mexico and struck southwest. No United States officer had a right to invade Mexican territory for a criminal, nor to arrest him on Mexican soil, but Johnson was determined to catch his man first and argue this legal phase of it afterwards, with Steve safe in the calaboose at Badger. So he opened a line gate unobserved and galloped through the soft night in pursuit of Moffatt. The days sped by and Hetty received a wire from Lafe, who was now in Cananea. "No luck," it ran. "He's doubled back on me. Hope to pick up trail here." But what transpired in Cananea deserves a place to itself. Even now Hetty does not like to hear any reference to the subject, and Lafe will eye her uneasily if it be mentioned. CHAPTER XVII JOHNSON MEETS A FRIEND OF HETTY'S Should a man clutch at an imaginary wire that eludes him up the wall beside his bed, and take to raving and prayer, it raises a doubt as to recent conduct and habits. Hughie MacFarlane, rancher, age thirty-seven years, did all this and many other disagreeable things, and then died. A considerable number of his acquaintances wagged their heads and remarked that the world would survive the loss--it was noticeable that those who had partaken most freely of Hughie's bounty were foremost in this line of epitaph. Others declaimed the platitude of the mealy-mouthed, that MacFarlane had been a big-hearted fellow, his own worst enemy. Within a week after the funeral, nobody in Cananea thought much about him one way or the other, and certain lapses in his notions of enjoyment were forgotten, for where there is no jury of public opinion, men grow tolerant of human frailty, and then lax. That is our way on the Border. So everybody promptly forgot Hughie--all except a flame-headed girl at the Hotel Carmen, who sniffed a great deal when she leaned over your shoulder to put the steak and vegetables on the table, and whose voice was wet when she inquired whether you preferred your eggs straight up or over. She was not one to tempt a man to boldness, and none had ever found her desirable; but once, on his way from the bar to the dining-room, Hughie had given her a rough, laughing embrace. That was all, on my honor; but Molly remembered and worshiped the unregenerate creature, according to her nature. Finally she became such a nuisance, with her red eyes and general dampness of face, that the proprietor discharged Molly. "Hughie was a fine feller when he first came here," Lafe Johnson remarked, in reference to this episode, "but he got to talking Mexican too good."