"You will presently. Keep it in mind that there wasn't any gold mine and couldn't have been. That talk was a blind to cover something else. Good enough. Now chew on this awhile. Dave sent a Mexican to bring the sheriff, but Sweeney didn't come. He explained that he wanted to go partners with Sweeney about this gold-mine proposition. If he was talking about a real gold mine, that is teetotally unreasonable. Nobody would pick Sweeney for a partner. He's a fathead and Dave worked against him before election. But Sweeney _is sheriff of Washington County_. Get that?" "I suppose you mean that Dingwell had something on the Rutherfords and was going to turn them over to the law." "You're getting warm, boy. Does the hold-up of the Pacific Flyer help you any?" Roy drew a long breath of surprise. "You mean the Western Express robbery two weeks ago?" "Sure I mean that. Say the Rutherford outfit did that job." "And that Dingwell got evidence of it. But then they would kill him." The heart of the young man sank. He had a warm place in it for this unknown friend who had paid his law-school expenses. "You're forgetting about the gold mine Dave claimed to have found in Lonesome Park. Suppose he was hunting strays and saw them cache their loot somewhere. Suppose he dug it up. Say they knew he had it, but didn't know where he had taken it. They couldn't kill him. They would have to hold him prisoner till they could make him tell where it was." The young lawyer shook his head. "Too many _ifs_. Each one makes a weak joint in your argument. Put them all together and it is full of holes. Possible, but extremely improbable." An eager excitement flashed in the blue eyes of the Irishman. "You're looking at the thing wrong end to. Get a grip on your facts first. The Western Express Company was robbed of twenty thousand dollars and the robbers were run into the hills. The Rutherford outfit is the very gang to pull off that hold-up. Dave tells Hal Rutherford, the leader of the tribe, that he has sent for the sheriff. Hal tries to get him to call it off. Dave talks about a gold mine he has found and Rutherford tries to fix up a deal with him. There's no _if_ about any of that, me young Sherlock Holmes." "No, you've built up a case. But there's a stronger case already built for us, isn't there? Dingwell exposed the gamblers Blair and Smith, knocked one of them cold, made them dig up a lot of money, and drove them out of town. They left, swearing vengeance. He rides away, and he is never seen again. The natural assumption is that they lay in wait for him and killed him." "Then where is the body?" "Lying out in the cactus somewhere--or buried in the sand."