did not stop here. He went on, Virginia
still following him, came to that other hole in the rock wall which she
had noted by the lantern light.

"In here," he said. "Just look."

He swept a match across his thigh, holding it up for her. She came to
his side and looked in. First she saw a number of small boxes,
innocent appearing affairs which suggested soda-crackers. Beyond them
was something covered with a blanket; Norton stepped by her and jerked
the covering aside. Startled, puzzled by what she saw, she looked to
him wonderingly. Placed neatly, lying side by side, their metal
surfaces winking back at the light of Norton's match, were a number of
rifles. A score of them, fifty, perhaps.

"It looks like a young revolution!" she cried, her gaze held, her eyes
fascinated by the unexpected.

"You've seen about everything now," he told her, the red ember of a
burnt-out match dropping to the floor. "Those boxes contain
cartridges. Now let's go back to Brocky."

"But they'll see that you have been here. . . ."

"I'll come back in a minute with the lantern; I want a further chance
to look things over. Then I'll put the blanket back and see that not
even that charred match gives us away. And we'd better be eating and
getting started."

With a steaming tin of black coffee before her, a brown piece of bacon
between her fingers, she forgot to eat or drink while she listened to
Norton's story. At the beginning it seemed incredible; then, her
thoughts sweeping back over the experiences of these last twenty-four
hours, her eyes having before them the picture of a sheriff, grim-faced
and determined, a wounded man lying just beyond the fire, the rough,
rudely arched walls and ceiling of a cave man's dwelling about her, she
deemed that what Norton knew and suspected was but the thing to be
expected.

"Jim Galloway is a big man," the sheriff said thoughtfully. "A very
big man in his way. My father was after him for a long time; I have
been after him ever since my father's death. But it is only recently
that I have come to appreciate Jim Galloway's caliber. That's why I
could never get him with the goods on; I have been looking for him in
the wrong places.

"I estimated that he was making money with the Casa Blanca and a
similar house which he operates in Pozo; I thought that his entire game
lay in such layouts and a bit of business now and then like the robbing
of the Las Palmas man. But now I know that mos