ingwell got evidence of it. But then they would kill him."
The heart of the young man sank. He had a warm place in it for this
unknown friend who had paid his law-school expenses.

"You're forgetting about the gold mine Dave claimed to have found in
Lonesome Park. Suppose he was hunting strays and saw them cache their
loot somewhere. Suppose he dug it up. Say they knew he had it, but
didn't know where he had taken it. They couldn't kill him. They would
have to hold him prisoner till they could make him tell where it was."

The young lawyer shook his head. "Too many _ifs_. Each one makes a
weak joint in your argument. Put them all together and it is full of
holes. Possible, but extremely improbable."

An eager excitement flashed in the blue eyes of the Irishman.

"You're looking at the thing wrong end to. Get a grip on your facts
first. The Western Express Company was robbed of twenty thousand
dollars and the robbers were run into the hills. The Rutherford outfit
is the very gang to pull off that hold-up. Dave tells Hal Rutherford,
the leader of the tribe, that he has sent for the sheriff. Hal tries
to get him to call it off. Dave talks about a gold mine he has found
and Rutherford tries to fix up a deal with him. There's no _if_ about
any of that, me young Sherlock Holmes."

"No, you've built up a case. But there's a stronger case already built
for us, isn't there? Dingwell exposed the gamblers Blair and Smith,
knocked one of them cold, made them dig up a lot of money, and drove
them out of town. They left, swearing vengeance. He rides away, and
he is never seen again. The natural assumption is that they lay in
wait for him and killed him."

"Then where is the body?"

"Lying out in the cactus somewhere--or buried in the sand."

"That wouldn't be a bad guess--if it wasn't for another bit of
testimony that came in to show that Dave was alive five hours after he
left the Legal Tender. A sheepherder on the Creosote Flats heard the
sound of horses' hoofs early next morning. He looked out of his tent
and saw three horses. Two of the riders carried rifles. The third
rode between them. He didn't carry any gun. They were a couple of
hundred yards away and the herder didn't recognize any of the men. But
it looked to him like the man without the gun was a prisoner."

"Well, what does that prove?"

"If the man in the middle was Dave--and that's the hunch I'm betting on
to the limit--it lets