n, which
is why your plugs are tuckered out. You've cached that liquor in this
valley, at the place you gathered up this truck. I don't say you
aren't 'hired man' to Miss Seton in Rocky Springs, but you're playing
a double game. You fetched her goods and dumped 'em at the cache, only
to pick 'em up when you were through with your other game."

The man laughed insolently.

"Gee! I must be a ter'ble bad feller, sergeant," he cried. "Me, as was
raised in a Bible class." His eyes twinkled as he went on. "An' I done
all that? All that you sed, sergeant? Say, I'm a real bright feller.
Guess I'll get a drink o' that liquor, won't I? It 'ud be a bum
trick----"

The sergeant's eyes snapped.

"You'll get the penitentiary before we're through with you. You and
the boys with you. We've followed your trail all the way, and that
trail ends right here. We're wise to you----"

"But you ain't wise where the liquor's cached," retorted the man with
a chuckle.

Then he looked straight into the officer's eyes.

"Say," he cried with his big laugh. "You can talk penitentiary till
you're sick. Ther' ain't no liquor in my wagon, an' if there ever has
been any, as you kind o' fancy, it's right up to you to locate it, and
spill it, an' not set right there keepin' me from my work."

As he finished speaking, with elaborate display, he shook his reins
and shouted at his horses, which promptly moved on.

As the wagon rolled away he turned his head and spoke over his
shoulder.

"You can't spill canned truck an' sewin' machines, sergeant," he
called back derisively. "That penitentiary racket don't fizz nothin'.
Guess you best think again."

The officer's chagrin was complete. It was the start the outlaws had
had that had beaten him. This was the wagon; this was one of the men.
Of these things he was convinced. There were others in it, too, but
they----. He turned to his troopers.

"I'd give a month's pay to get bracelets on that feller," he said with
a grin that had no mirth in it. Then he added grimly, as he gazed
after the receding wagon: "And I'm a Scotchman."

CHAPTER VI

THE MAN-HUNTERS

The girl's handsome face was turned toward the valley below her. She
was staring with eyes of dreaming, half regretful, yet not without a
faint light of humor, at the nestling village in the lap of the
woodlands, which crowded the heart of the valley, where the silvery
thread of river wound its way.

The wide foliage of the maple tre