two hours after the sound of the shot. There in its
accustomed place was Case's revolver, every chamber loaded and a thin
coating of dust on the grip. Case's pistol then had not been used.
Bentley went in and examined the medicine glass--this was toward four
o'clock--and apparently Case must have taken, said Bentley, at least
four doses. That much at any rate was gone, and Case was sleeping so
heavily he could hardly be roused--could hardly be kept awake, begged
thickly, sluggishly, to be allowed to "sleep it off," as though he
thought he must have been drinking again. Bentley brought out one of
Case's boots, and the track it fitted could be found all over the
flats, about the store, shack and stream, and proved nothing at all,
for everybody knew he had been wandering aimlessly about for days and
nights past. The window shade or blanket had been disarranged and the
window had been raised a few inches, probably for air. Everything else
was as Craney remembered seeing it before he turned in, and the
inference was clear to every mind that Case had never left the room and
probably, after the second dose, never left his bed.

And now, from Turner down, all troopers lately afield in search of
'Tonio were again at Almy, discomfited, disheartened. "Hunting for a
needle in a haystack without a magnet," said Turner, "is no more
fruitless than scouting for Apaches in these mountains without Apache
scouts. There is only one way," said he, "to capture 'Tonio. 'Set a
thief to catch a thief; set an Indian to catch an Indian.'" But the few
Indian scouts assigned to Almy had all been drafted away with Stannard
and the field columns in the Mogollon. "Even had they been available,"
said Archer, who listened with gloomy brow, "Harris says no
Apache-Mohave would betray 'Tonio, and no Apache-Yuma dare do it," and
now, as never before, Archer had taken to long talks with Harris--who
would gladly have had him keep away.

"Youngster," said Bentley, looking his patient keenly over the second
day after what had come to be called "the shooting," "I'm blessed if
I'm not getting discouraged on your account. Here I have had you within
reaching distance of 'fit for duty' twice, and both times you've gone
back on me. It's my belief- you'd be better anywhere else than here.
Almy's too high strung for your temperament."

"Get me once in saddle and I won't come back--or go back on you," said
Harris. "How's Willett?"

"High fever, tossing and talking-