; send Moraga along with him. And, whatever you do, keep Jim
Galloway where you've got him. I think we've got our case against him
to-night."

"That's what I've been thinking. I guess that's what Norton would do,
eh?"

"Sure of it," said Engle promptly. "Find out, if you can, whether
Moraga got a chance to talk with Galloway. I'm going back to the house
to let my wife and Florrie know what has happened."

Engle hurried to his home, told what had happened, and, leaving his
wife anxious, his daughter weeping hysterically, returned to the hotel.

"I've done all that any one could do for him," said Patten, as though
defending himself because of Norton's continued unconsciousness. "He's
in pretty bad shape, Engle. Oh, I guess I can pull him through, but at
that it's going to be a close squeak. Lucky I was right on hand,
though." And he grew technical, spoke of blood pressures taken, of
traumatism superinducing prolonged coma, of this and that which made no
impression on the banker.

"You mentioned two wounds," Engle reminded him. "The one made by the
bullet and another. . . ."

"By his head striking as he fell? Yes; that would have completed the
work of the first shock in knocking him unconscious. But it is a
negligible affair now; he wouldn't know anything about it in the
morning if it weren't for the lump that'll be there. And since the
other injury, the long gouging cut made by the bullet, has just plowed
along the outer surface of the skull, I think that I can promise you
he'll be all right pretty soon now. We ought to have some ice, but
I've made cold compresses do."

Engle went again to look in upon Norton. The sheriff lay as before, on
his back, his limbs lax, his face deathly white, a bandage about his
head. A lump came into the banker's throat and he turned away. For he
remembered that just so had Billy Norton lain, that Billy Norton had
never regained consciousness . . . and that the blow then as now had
been struck by Galloway or Galloway's man. The sudden fear was upon
him that Rod Norton was even more badly hurt than Caleb Patten
admitted. The fear did not lessen as the night drew on and finally
brightened into another day. When the sun flared up out of the
flatlands lying beyond Tecolote the wounded man at Struve's hotel lay
as he had done all night giving no sign to tell whether he was life's
or death's.

CHAPTER XIII

CONCEALMENT

The eyes of San Juan were upon Caleb Pa