Deveril, though his eyes twinkled, appeared to be musing. "So you sent him word to stay away? Didn't you know that he'd come, red-hot and raging, as soon as he got your message? Oh, well, you and my crazy kinsman fight it out to your liking; it would be a great thing for the community if you'd both do a clean job, cutting each other's throats.... By the way, where does Taggart fit in? How does he work it to be hand in glove with both of you at the same time?" "You heard what I said just now?" "I did. Say, Gallup, where's Mexicali Joe? I've got some business with him." Gallup, brooding, appeared not to have heard. Then, making no answer, he turned and went back into his house and into the big main room, where a crowd of men had foregathered. Deveril, his hat far back, his dark eyes keen and bright, followed him, almost at his heels. Gallup saw him out of the tail of his eye but for once gulped down his first hot impulse; his hands were full as things were and there were large stakes to play for, with nothing to be gained just now by a rough-and-tumble fist fight with a man who was obviously highly capable of taking care of himself. So he pretended to let Deveril's entrance go unnoted and thereafter ignored him. For the first time in many days there were no drinks being served in Gallup's House. With so many strangers in town, one did not know how many federal agents might be snooping about. And, again, this was no time for the main issue to become befogged with side issues; Gallup did not want any unnecessary ruction on his hands. Nevertheless some of the men drank now and then, but from pocket flasks which they had brought in with them; flasks which for the most part came originally from Gallup's stock but which had been sold on the street by Gallup's man Ricky. The room was thick with heavy tobacco smoke; most of the men remained strangely quiet, watching Gallup or Barny McCuin, who glowered in a corner, or the sheriff who came and went among them. Deveril spent not more than ten minutes here; once more he returned to the street and to his passing from knot to knot of men. "I'll bet a hat Gallup was lying about that warning to my mad kinsman," he told himself thoughtfully. "I don't believe he's man enough to get rough with Bruce Standing." It was almost at the moment that Deveril came out of Gallup's place that the first shock of genuine news burst along the crowded road; Mexicali Joe had been located. He was in the stone jail, not five hundred yards from the thickest of his seekers, and had been there since last night, locked up by Taggart! The crowd split asunder as cleanly as though some gigantic axe had cloven its way between the two fragments; one group at full tilt ran to the jail, to prove to their own senses that here at last was a word of truth; the other streamed down to the Gallup House, seeking Taggart and an explanation. With the latter went Babe Deveril, who meant to keep his eye on Taggart and Gallup.