Now, where do you suppose he got twenty dollars in one
bill? I know _I_ had it two hours after he got there and then in
fifteen minutes that blamed bull-whacker you pay thirty-two a week to
took it away from me. But I got Sassoon spotted. And where do you
suppose Split-lips is this minute?"

"Morgan's Gap."

"Quite so--and been there all the time. Now, Bob has the old warrant
for him: the question is, how to get him out."

De Spain reflected a moment before replying: "John, I'd let him alone
just for the present," he said at length.

Lefever's eyes bulged: "Let Sassoon alone?"

"He will keep--for a while, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to stir things up too strong over that way just at the
minute, John."

"Why not?"

De Spain shuffled a little: "Well, Jeffries thinks we might let things
rest till Duke Morgan and the others get over some of their
soreness."

Lefever, astonished at the indifference of de Spain to the opportunity
of nabbing Sassoon, while he could be found, expostulated strongly.
When de Spain persisted, Lefever, huffed, confided to Bob Scott that
when the general manager got ready he could catch Sassoon himself.

De Spain wanted for Nan's sake, as well as his own, to see what could
be done to pacify her uncle and his relatives so that a wedge might be
driven in between them and their notorious henchman, and Sassoon
brought to book with their consent; on this point, however, he was not
quite bold-faced enough to take his friends into his confidence.

De Spain, as fiery a lover as he was a fighter, stayed none of his
courting because circumstances put Music Mountain between him and his
mistress. And Nan, after she had once surrendered, was nothing behind
in the chances she unhesitatingly took to arrange her meetings with de
Spain. He found in her, once her girlish timidity was overcome and a
woman's confidence had replaced it, a disregard of consequences, so
far as their own plans were concerned, that sometimes took away his
breath.

The very day after she had got her uncle home, with the aid of
Satterlee Morgan and an antiquated spring wagon, Nan rode, later in
the afternoon, over to Calabasas. The two that would not be restrained
had made their appointment at the lower lava beds half-way between
the Gap and Calabasas. The sun was sinking behind the mountain when de
Spain galloped out of the rocks as Nan turned from the trail and rode
toward the black and weather-beaten meet