al, and
Biggs's bar-room, and Red-Light Sammy's, were full to overflowing.
Crossing to the corner opposite the hotel, the superintendent entered
the open door of Schleisinger's "Emporium." At the moment there was a
dearth of trade, and the round-faced little German who had weathered all
the Angelic storms was discovered shaving himself before a triangular
bit of looking-glass, stuck up on the packing-box which served him by
turns as a desk and a dressing-case.

"How you vas, Mr. Litchervood?" was his greeting, offered while the
razor was on the upward sweep. "Don'd tell me you vas come aboud some
more of dose chustice businesses. Me, I make oud no more of dem
warrants, _nichts_. Dot _teufel_ Rufford iss come back again, alretty,
and----"

Lidgerwood broke the refusal in the midst.

"You are an officer of the law, Schleisinger--more is the pity, both for
you and the law--and you must do your duty. I have come to swear out
another warrant. Get your blank and fill it in."

The German shopkeeper put down his razor with only one side of his face
shaven. "Oh, _mein Gott!_" was his protest; but he rummaged in the
catch-all packing-box and found the pad of blank warrants. Lidgerwood
dictated slowly, in charity for the trembling fingers that held the pen.
Knowing his own weakness, he could sympathize with others. When it came
to the filling in of Hallock's name, Schleisinger stopped, open-mouthed.

"_Donnerwetter!_" he gasped, "you don'd mean dot, Mr. Litchervood; you
don'd neffer mean dot?"

"I am sorry to say that I do; sorrier than you or any one else can
possibly be."

"Bud--bud----"

"I know what you would say," interrupted Lidgerwood hastily. "You are
afraid of Hallock's friends--as you were afraid of Rufford and his
friends. But you must do your sworn duty."

"_Nein, nein_, dot ain'd it," was the earnest denial. "Bud--bud nobody
vould serve a warrant on Mr. Hallock, Mr. Litchervood! I----"

"I'll find some one to serve it," said the complainant curtly, and
Schleisinger made no further objections.

With the warrant in his pocket, a magistrate's order calling for the
arrest and detention of Rankin Hallock on the double charge of
train-wrecking and murder, Lidgerwood left Schleisinger's, meaning to go
back to the Crow's Nest and have McCloskey put the warrant in Judson's
hands. But there was a thing to come between; a thing not wholly
unlooked for, but none the less destructive of whatever small hope of
regene