At daybreak the party returned, worn out by their long tramp. The moon had risen about ten o'clock, and by its brilliant light they had searched carefully the hills and arroyos within two or three miles of the town, but had not found a trace of the lost child. Main street had slept on its arms that night. Men of both parties, wrapped in their blankets, with revolvers and shot-guns and rifles under their hands, had dotted the court-house yard, had lain on the sidewalks near the jail, and had slept on the floors of shops and offices along both sides of Main street. Feeling had risen so high that a hasty word, or the unguarded movement of a hand toward a pistol butt, was likely to cause the beginning of the battle. The Democrats had telegraphed to Santa Fe and learned that the order of the court making Joe Davis sheriff, having left there by mail on Saturday, should have reached Las Plumas on Sunday. So they announced that they would wait until the arrival of the mail from the north on Monday at noon, and that if the Republicans did not then vacate the office they would march upon the court-house, seize the clerk of the court, take forcible possession of the jail, and install Joe Davis in the office of sheriff. They swore they would do all this before sunset Monday night if they had to soak the sand of the streets a foot deep in blood. The Republicans grimly said that they would not give up the office without the official order of the court if they had to kill every Democrat in the town to hold it. When the party searching for little Paul walked down Main street in the dim, early light, their footsteps breaking loudly upon the morning silence, men jumped to their feet with revolvers at ready, and set faces, crowned with disheveled hair, looked out from doorways whence came the click of cocking triggers. As the party was divided in its political affiliations, the young men knew that it would be safer for them to separate and for each to walk down Main street on that side to which his elders belonged. And so it happened that armed men, jumping from their blankets with revolvers drawn and cocked, and sternly commanding "halt," heard on both sides of the street at the same time how Pierre Delarue's little boy was lost on the mesa. Over and over again the young men told their story as they walked down the street, and group after group of armed and expectant men asked anxiously, "What's the matter?" "What's up?" "What's happened?" As they listened, the angry resolve in their faces softened into sympathy and concern, and everywhere there were low exclamations of "We must hunt him up!" "We must all turn out!"