use. Where do we hit this trail you were
telling me about?"

"About a mile and a half further on. It ain't much to boast of, but
chances are we won't meet up with a soul till we run into the main road a
mile or so this side of Perilla."

Bud's prediction proved accurate. They encountered no one throughout the
entire length of the twisting, narrow, little-used trail, and even when
they reached the main road early in the afternoon there was very little
passing.

"Reckon they're all taking their siesta," commented. Bud. "Perilla's a
great place for greasers, yuh know, bein' so near the border. There's a
heap sight more of 'em than whites."

Presently they began to pass small, detached adobe huts, some of them the
merest hovels. A few dark-faced children were in sight here and there, but
the older persons were all evidently comfortably indoors, slumbering
through the noonday heat.

Further on the houses were closer together, and at length Bud announced
that they were nearing the main street, one end of which crossed the road
they were on at right angles.

"That rickety old shack there is just on the corner," he explained. "It's
a Mexican eating-house, as I remember. Most of the stores an' decent
places are up further."

"Wonder where Hardenberg hangs out?" remarked Stratton.

"Yuh got me. I never had no professional use for him before. Reckon most
anybody can tell us, though. That looks like a cow-man over there. Let's
ask him."

A moment or two later they stopped before the dingy, weather-beaten
building on the corner. Two horses fretted at the hitching-rack, and on
the steps lounged a man in regulation cow-boy garb. A cigarette dangled
from one corner of his mouth, and as the two halted he glanced up from the
newspaper he was reading.

"Hardenberg?" he repeated in answer to the question. "Yuh mean the
sheriff? Why, he's inside there."

Bud looked surprised and somewhat incredulous. "What the devil's he doin'
in that greaser eatin'-house?"

The stranger squinted one eye as the cigarette smoke curled up into his
face. "Oh, he ain't patronizin' the joint," he explained with a touch of
dry amusement. "He's after old Jose Maria for sellin' licker, I reckon.
Him an' one of his deputies rode up about five minutes ago."

After a momentary hesitation Stratton and Jessup dismounted and tied their
horses to the rack. Buck realized that the sheriff might not care to be
interrupted while on business of this sort, but