at the bottom of this yarn."

CHAPTER X. DEPUTIES ALL

At the ranch, whither they rode in haste, Luck meant to leave his boys
and go on with the sheriff to town. But the Happy Family flatly refused
to be left behind. Even old Aleck Douglas--whom years and trouble
had enfeebled until his very presence here with Jean and Lite was a
health-seeking mission in the wonderful air of New Mexico--even old
Aleck Douglas stamped his foot at Jean and declared that he was going,
along to see that "the boy" got a square deal. There wouldn't be any
railroading Luck to the pew for something he didn't do, he asserted with
a tragic meaning that wrung the heart of Jean. It took Lite's arguments
and Luck's optimism and, finally, the assurance of the sheriff that Luck
was not under arrest and was in no danger of it, to keep the old man at
the ranch. Also, they promised to return with all speed and not to keep
supper waiting, before the two women were satisfied to let them go.

"Oh, Luck Lindsay," Rosemary bethought her to announce just as they were
leaving, "you better keep an eye out for Annie, while you're in town.
She's gone--and the dog and all her clothes and everything. Maybe she
took the train back to the reservation. I just wanted you to know, so if
you feel you ought to bother--"

"Annie gone?" Even in his preoccupation the mews came with a stab. "When
did she go?"

"We don't know. She set up an awful yowling when you boys went to work.
And the dog commenced howling, till it was simply awful. So we rode
in to town after the mail, and when we came back she was gone, bag and
baggage. We didn't see anything of her on the trail, but she could dodge
us if she wanted to--she's Injun enough for that."

So Luck carried a double load of anxiety with him to town, and the first
thing he did when he reached it was to seek, not the beaten cashier
who had accused him, but the ticket agent at the depot, and the baggage
men--anyone who would be apt to remember Annie-Many-Ponies if she took a
train out of town.

You might think that, with so many Indians coming and going at the
depot, selling their wares and making picturesque setting for the
curios which are purveyed there, that Luck stood a very slight chance of
gaining any information whatever. But a Sioux squaw in Albuquerque would
be as noticeable as a Hindoo. Pueblos, Navajos--they may come and go
unnoticed because of their numbers. But an Indian of another tribe and
style of dre