thers of their ilk and go scot free. Naturally, the Casa Blanca
became headquarters for a large percentage of the newcomers.

"The condition in and about San Juan," commented one of the most
reputable and generally conservative of the attacking dailies, "has
become acute, unprecedented for this time in our development. The
community has become the asylum of the lawless. The authorities have
shown themselves utterly unable to cope with the situation. A
well-known figure of the desert town who long ago should have gone to
the gallows is daily growing bolder, attaching to himself the wildest
of the insurging element, and is commonly looked upon as a crime
dictator. Unless there comes a stiffening in the moral fiber of the
local officers, we dread to consider the logical outcome of these
conditions."

And so forth from countless quarters. Galloway openly jeered at
Norton. New faces, looking out from the Casa Blanca, grinned widely as
the sheriff now and then rode past. Engle and Struve and Tom Cutter,
anxious and beginning to be afraid of what lurked in the future, met at
the hotel and sought to hit upon a solution of the problem.

"Norton has got something up his sleeve," growled the hotel keeper,
"and he's as stubborn as a mule. He's after Galloway, and it begins to
look as though he were forgetting that his job is to serve the county
first and his own private quarrels next. I've jawed him up and down;
it only makes him shake his head like a horse with flies after him."

The three, hoping that their combined arguments might have weight with
Norton, went to him and did not leave him until they had made clear
what their thoughts were, what the whole State was saying of him. And,
as Struve had predicted, he shook his head.

"These later robberies haven't been Galloway's work," he told them
positively. "They were pulled off by the same man who stuck up Kemble
of the Quigley mines. Inside of a week I'll get something done; I'll
promise you that. But let me do it my way."

Engle alone of the three drew a certain satisfaction from the interview.

"He has promised something definite," he told them. "Did you ever know
him to do that and fail to keep his word? Maybe we're getting a little
excited, boys."

The latest crime had been the robbery of the little bank at Packard
Springs. The highwayman had gone in the night to the room of the
cashier, forced him to dress, go to the bank, and open his safe. The
r