The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine

if he didn't come out?" she asked in wide-eyed innocence.

      "He didn't rob _us_ any. He must 'a' heard of the shipment of gold, and that's what he was after. After he'd got us to rights he made me throw the box down in the road. That's where it was when he ordered us to move on and keep agoing."

      "And you went?"

      "Jos handled the lines, but 't would 'a' been the same if I'd held them. That gun of his was a right powerful persuader." He stopped to shake a fist in impotent fury in the air. "I wish to God I could meet up with him some day when he didn't have the drop on me."

      "Maybe you will some time," she told him soothingly. "I don't think you're a bit to blame, Alan. Nobody could think so. Ever so many times I've heard Dad say that when a man gets the drop on you there's nothing to do but throw up your hands."

      "Do you honest think so, Melissy? Or are you just saying it to take the sting away? Looks like I ought to 'a' done something mor'n sit there like a bump on a log while he walked off with the gold."

      His cheerful self-satisfaction was under eclipse. The boyish pride of him was wounded. He had not "made good." All over Cattleland the news would be wafted on the wings of the wind that Alan McKinstra, while acting as shotgun messenger to a gold shipment, had let a road agent hold him up for the treasure he was guarding.

      "Very likely they'll catch him and get the gold back," she suggested.

      "That won't do me any good," he returned gloomily. "The only thing that can help me now is for me to git the fellow myself, and I might just as well look for a needle in a haystack."

      "You can't tell. The robber may be right round here now." Her eyes, shining with excitement, passed the crowd moving in and out of the store, for already the news of the hold-up had brought riders and ranchmen jogging in to learn the truth of the wild tale that had reached them.

      "More likely he's twenty miles away. But whoever he is, he knows this county. He made a slip and called Jos by his name."

      Melissy's gaze was turned to the dust whirl that advanced up the road that ran round the corral. "That doesn't prove anything, Alan. Everybody knows Jos. He's lived all over Arizona--at Tucson and Tombstone and Douglas."

      "That's right too," the lad admitted.

      The riders in advance of the dust cloud resolved themselves into the persons of her father and Norris. Her incautious admission was already troubling her.

      "But I'm sure you're right. No hold-up with any sense would stay around here and wait to be caught. He's probably gone up into the Galiuros to hide."

      "Unless he's cached the gold and is trying to throw off suspicion."

      The girl had moved forward to the end of the house with Alan to meet her father. At that instant, by the ironic humor of chance, her glance fell upon a certain improvised wash-stand covered with oilcloth. She shook her head decisively. "No, he won't risk waiting to do that. He'll make sure of his escape first."

      "I reckon."

      "Have you heard, Daddy?" Melissy called out eagerly. She knew she must play the part expected of her, that of a young girl much interested in this adventure which had occurred in the community.

      He nodded grimly, swinging from the saddle. She observed with surprise that his eye did not meet hers. This was not like him.

      "What do you think?"

      His gaze met that of Norris before he answered, and there was in it some hint of a great fear. "Beats me, 'Lissy."

      He had told the simple truth, but not the whole truth. The men had waited at the entrance to the Box Caon for nearly two hours without the arrival of the stage. Deciding that something must have happened, they started back, and presently met a Mexican who stopped to tell them the news. To say that they were dazed is to put it mildly. To expect them to believe that somebody else had heard of the secret shipment and had held up the stage two miles from the place they had chosen, was to ask a credulity too simple. Yet this was the fact that confronted them.

      Arrived at the scene of the robbery both men had dismounted and had examined the ground thoroughly. What they saw tended still more to bewilder them. Neither of them was a tenderfoot, and the little table at the summit of the long hill told a very tangled tale to those who had eyes to read. Obvious tracks took them at once to the spot where the bandit had stood in the bushes, but there was something about them that struck both men as suspicious.

      "Looks like these are worked out on purpose," commented Lee. "The guy's leaving too easy a trail to follow, and it quits right abrupt in the bushes. Must 'a' took an airship from here, I 'low."

      "Does look funny. Hello! What's this?"

      Norris had picked up a piece of black cloth and was holding it out. A startled oath slipped from the lips of the Southerner. He caught the rag from the hands of his companion and studied it with a face of growing astonishment.

      "What's up?"

      Lee dived into his pocket and drew forth the mask he had been wearing. Silently he fitted it to the other. The pieces matched exactly, both in length and in the figure of the pattern.

      When the Southerner looked up his hands were shaking and his face ashen.

      "For God's sake, Phil, what does this mean?" he cried hoarsely.

      "Search me."

      "It must have been--looks like the hold-up was somebody--my God, man, we left this rag at the ranch when we started!" the rancher whispered.

      "That's right."

      "We planned this thing right under the nigger's room. He must 'a' heard and---- But it don't look like Jim Budd to do a thing like that."

      Norris had crossed the road again and was standing on the edge of the lateral.

      "Hello! This ditch is full of water. When we passed down it was empty," he said.

      Lee crossed over and stood by his side, a puzzled frown on his face. "There hadn't ought to be water running hyer now," he said, as if to himself. "I don't see how it could 'a' come hyer, for Bill Weston--he's the ditch rider--went to Mesa this mo'ning, and couldn't 'a' got back to turn it in."

      The younger man stooped and examined a foot-print at the edge of the ditch. It was the one Melissy had made just as she stepped into the rig.

      "Here's something new, Lee. We haven't seen this gentleman's track before. Looks like a boy's. It's right firm and deep in this soft ground. I'll bet a cooky your nigger never made that track."

      The Southerner crouched down beside him, and they looked at it together, head to head.

      "No, it ain't Jim's. I don't rightly _savez_ this thing at all," the old man muttered, troubled at this mystery which seemed to point to his household.

      "By Moses, I've got it! The guy who did the holding up had his horse down here. He loaded the sack on its back and drove off up the ditch. All we got to do is follow the ditch up or down till we come to the place where he climbed out and struck across country."

      "That's right, Phil. He must have had a pardner up at the head-gates. They had some kind of signal arranged, and when Mr. Hold-up was ready down come the water and washed out his tracks. It's a blame' smooth piece of business if you ask me."

      "The fellow made two bad breaks, though. That piece of shirt is one. This foot-print is another. They may land him in the pen yet."

      "I don't think it," returned the old man with composure, and as he spoke his foot erased the telltale print. "I 'low there won't anybody go to the pen for he'pin himself to Mr. Morse's gold dust. I don't give a cuss who it was."

      Norris laughed in his low, easy way. "I'm with you, Mr. Lee. We'll make a thorough job while we're at it and mess up these other tracks. After that we'll follow the ditch up and see if there's anything doing."

      They remounted their broncos and rode them across the tracks several times, then followed the lateral up, one on either side of the ditch, their eyes fastened to