did?"

Judith received the news sleepily and much more quietly than Carson had
expected.

"We'll have to keep our eyes open after this, Carson," was her
criticism. Remembering the night when she had been so certain that
there had been some one listening to her talk with Tripp she added
thoughtfully: "We've got to keep an eye on our own men, Carson. Some
one of our crowd, taking my pay, is double-crossing us. Now, get your
men on the jump and we won't bother about the milk-spilling. If we are
in luck we'll get Shorty yet. And Quinnion, Carson! Don't forget
Quinnion. And we've still got Bill Crowdy; we'll get everything out of
him that he knows."

The cattleman rode away in heavy silence, headed toward the cabin at
the Upper End, his men riding with him, an eager, watchful crowd. But
Carson had his doubts about getting Quinnion, his fears that it would
be a long time before he ever put a rope again to Shorty's thick wrists.

During the day Emmet Sawyer, the Rocky Bend sheriff, came, and with him
Doctor Brannan. Sawyer assured Judith that he would be followed
shortly by a posse led by a deputy and that they would hunt through the
mountains until they got the outlaws. He listened to all that she had
to tell him and then looked up Bud Lee.

"You didn't see Quinnion?" he asked. "Could you swear to him if we
ever bring him in? Just by his voice?"

"Yes," answered Lee. "I can. But see if you can't get Crowdy to
squeal. We're shy Shorty's real name, too, you know."

To all questions put him, Bill Crowdy answered with stubborn denial of
knowledge or not at all. He had been alone; he didn't know any man
named Quinnion; he didn't know anything about Shorty. And he hadn't
robbed Miller. That canvas bag, then, with the thousand dollars in it?
He had found it; picked it up in a gully.

"I won't do any talking," he grunted in final word, "until I get a
lawyer to talk to. I know that much, Sawyer, if I don't know a hell of
a lot. An' you can get it out'n your head that I'm the kind to snitch
on a pal--even if I had one, which I didn't."

Crowdy, at Doctor Brannan's orders, was taken to Rocky Bend where
Sawyer promised him a speedy trial, conviction and heavy sentence
unless he changed his mind and turned state's evidence. And--to be
done with Bill Crowdy for good and all--he never came to stand trial.
A mad attempt at escape a week later, another bullet-hole given him in
his struggle with his jailer, and