hen he saw the dingy, high-powered roadster
of the sheriff come careening up the trail. He came near upsetting his
machine in getting around Apodaca's big car, but he negotiated the
passing with some skill and came on to where he met Elfigo himself
sweating down the trail with his full five-gallon water bag.

Here again Starr wished that he could hear as well as he could see. That
the sheriff had seized the opportunity to place Elfigo under arrest, he
knew well enough, by faces and gestures, just as he had known of Elfigo's
introduction to Helen May. But here were no polite nothings being
mouthed. Elfigo was talking angrily, and Starr would have given a great
deal to hear what he was saying; calling it an outrage, he supposed, and
heaping maledictions on the stupidity of the law.

The sheriff did not seem to pay much attention to what Elfigo was saying
beyond pulling a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket, and tossing
them to his prisoner--with the invitation to put them on, Starr knew
very well, having himself done the same thing more than once. Still
talking furiously, Elfigo obeyed, and then was invited to climb in
beside the sheriff, who stooped and did something with one of Elfigo's
stylishly trousered legs; manacled him to something in the machine,
Starr guessed. From which he also gathered that Elfigo's remarks must
have been pretty strong.

The sheriff started on, ran to where he could turn without upsetting, and
backed the car around as though his errand were done. Quick work it had
been. Evidently Sheriff O'Malley had attended the inquest with a blank
warrant in his pocket, for fear Elfigo might take alarm and give them
the slip. He must have been on the way back when he had either seen
Elfigo's car on the Sommers trail, or else had noted where it had turned
off and had come up the trail in a purely investigative spirit. However
that might be, he had not let the chance slip. Which was characteristic
of Sheriff O'Malley, essentially a man of action.

Starr should have been glad. Perhaps he was, though he did not look it as
he went back to where Rabbit was browsing on whatever he could get while
he waited for his master. Elfigo in jail even for a few days would be an
advantage, Starr believed. It would set the rest to buzzing, so that he
could locate them with less delay. But at the same time--

"If it came to a showdown right now, I'd have to take her along with the
rest," he came up squarely against his