sheriff with seeming
indifference. Pete shrugged.

"Me, I ain't seen Vidal for a mont'," he answered briefly. "I see Jim
Galloway though. Galloway say," and Pete ran his towel idly back and
forth along the bar, "Vidal come to la Casa Blanca to-night. I dunno,"
and again he shrugged.

Norton allowed himself the luxury of a mystifying smile as Pete Nunez
lifted probing eyes to his face.

"Jim Galloway has been known to lie before now, like other men," was
all of the information he gave to the questioning look. "And," his
face suddenly as expressionless as Pete's own, "it wouldn't be a bad
bet to look for Vidal in Tres Robles, would it? Eh, Pete?"

With that he went out. Quite willing that Pete and his crowd should
think what they pleased, Tres Robles lay twenty miles northeast of
Tecolote, and if Pete cared to send word to Galloway that the sheriff
had ridden on that way, well and good.

Half an hour later, with the deeper dark of the night settling thick
and sultry over the surface of the desert lands, he rode out of town
following the Tres Robles trail. He knew that Pete had come to his
door and was watching; he had the vague suspicion that it was quite
possible that Vidal was watching, too, with eyes smouldering with
hatred. That was only a guess, not even for a man to hazard a bet
upon. But the feeling that the fugitive was somewhere in Tecolote or
in the mesquite thickets near abouts had been strong enough to send him
travelling this way in the afternoon, would have been strong enough for
him to have acted upon, searching through shack after shack, were it
not that deep down in his heart he did not believe that Jim Galloway
had lied. Here, while he came in at one door Vidal might slip out at
another, safe among friends. But in the Casa Blanca Norton meant that
matters should be different.

For an hour he rode toward the northeast. Then, turning out of the
trail and reining his horse into the utter blackness offered by the
narrow mouth or an arroyo, he sat still for a long time, listening,
staring back through the night toward Tecolote. At last, confident
that he had not been followed, he cut across the low-lying lomas
marking the western horizon and in a swinging gallop rode straight
toward San Juan.

He had had ample time for the shaping of his simple plans long before
catching the first winking glimpse of the lights of the Casa Blanca.
He left his horse under the cottonwoods, hung his spurs o