ss would be conspicuous enough to be remembered. So, when no
one remembered seeing Annie-Many-Ponies, Luck dismissed the conjecture
that she had taken the train, and turned his attention to picking up the
trail of the bank-robbers.

Here the Happy Family, with Applehead and Lite Avery, had managed
to accomplish a good deal in a very short time. The Native Son, for
instance, had ridden straight out from the bank into the Mexican
quarter, as soon as he learned that the red automobile had gone up
Silver Street and turned south on Fourth. By the time Luck reached the
bank Miguel came loping back with the news that the red machine had
crossed the lower bridge and had turned up toward Atrisco, that little
Mexican hamlet which lies between the river and the bluffs where the
white sand of the desert spills over into the nearest corrals and little
pastures.

The others had learned definitely that Bill Holmes had manipulated the
fake camera while the bank was being robbed, and that the man with him,
who bad also driven the machine, was a certain chauffeur of colorless
personality and an unsavory reputation among other drivers; and that
the number of the automobile was a matter of conjecture, since three
different men who were positive they remembered it gave three different
numbers.

In company with the sheriff they called upon the cashier, who was in bed
with his head bandaged and his nerves very much unstrung. He was much
calmer, however, than when he had hysterically accused Luck of betraying
him into putting the money out to be stolen. He admitted now that he
was not at all sure of the voice which talked with him over the phone;
indeed, now when he heard luck speak, he felt extremely doubtful of the
similarity of that other voice. He protested against being blamed for
being too confiding. He had never dreamed, he said, that anyone could be
so bold as to plan a thing like that. It all sounded straight, about the
spoiled negative and so forth. He was very sorry that he had caused
Luck Lindsay any inconvenience or annoyance, and he begged Luck's pardon
several times in the course of his explanation of the details.

They left him still protesting and apologizing and explaining and
touching his bandaged head with self-pitying tenderness. In the street
Luck turned to the sheriff as though his mind was made up to something
which argument could not alter in the slightest degree.

"I realize that in a way I'm partly responsible f