The Major permitted himself a grin.

"He yanked the shoes off his horse before he left. Once he mixes his tracks up with a bunch of wild mares he'll be all right. They may think, but they can't prove anything. And Foy'll be all right--if only the posse follows the plain trail."

"It's too much to hope," said Stella. "They'll split up. Some of them will hunt out the hills anyway--to-morrow, if not to-day."

"That's my idea of it," said Pringle.

"They won't find the cave if they do," said Vorhis hopefully. "If he can get to the Bar Cross they'll see him through, once they hear his story. Not telling about that clean-up you and Kit made last night is a dead give-away."

"Any chance of Foy slipping out afoot?"

"Too far. But he could stand a siege till we could get word to his friends if, by any chance, the posse should find his cave. He took my rifle. He can see them coming; he'll have every advantage against attack; and there's another way out of the cave, up on top of the hill. There's just one thing against him. There wasn't even a canteen here. He took some jerky and canned stuff--but only one measly beer bottle of water. When that's used up it's going to be a dull time for him. We can't get water to him very handy without leaving some sign.

We mustn't get hostile with the posse. Take it easy--you especially, Pringle. Stella and me, they know where we stand. But you're a stranger. Maybe they'll let you go on. If you once get away--bring the Bar Cross boys and they'll take Foy out of here in broad day."

"Very pretty--but there's four men in Las Uvas that know me--and three of them are police. Maybe they'll stay in the city though--being police?"

"No, they won't," said the Major gloomily. "They'll be along--deputized, of course. Maybe they won't be in the first batch though. Your part is to be the disinterested traveler, wanting to be on your way."

"It won't work, Major. This is a put-up job. Even if Applegate and his strikers aren't along they've given my description. Somebody will know I was with Foy last night, and they'll know I'm lying."

The Major sighed. "That's so, too. I'm afraid you're in for trouble."

"I'm used to that," said Pringle lightly. "Once, in Arizona----"

"Don't throw it up to me, John," said the Major a trifle sheepishly.

"I'll say this though: I wouldn't ask for a better man in a tight than you."

"Thanks so much!" murmured Pringle. "And that Sir Hubert Stanley thing."

"One more point, John: You don't know Foy. I do. Foy'll never give up.

He's desperate--and he's not pleased. There's no question of surrender and standing trial; understand that. He'd be lynched, probably, if they ever got him in Las Uvas. A trial, even, would be just lynching under another name. They don't want to capture him anyway--they want a chance to kill him."

"I wouldn't want the job," said Pringle.

"Hush!" said Stella. "I hear them coming. Talk about something else--the war in Europe."

The Major picked up a paper.

"What do you think about the United States building a big navy, John?"

he asked casually.

Stealthy footsteps rustled without.

"Fine!" said Pringle. "I'm strong for it. We want dreadnoughts, and lots of 'em--biggest we can build. But that ain't all. When we make the navy appropriations we ought to set by about fifty-some-odd million and build a big multiple-track railroad, so we can carry our navy inland in case of war. The ocean is no place for a battleship these days."

"Stop your kidding!"

"I'm not kidding," said John Wesley indignantly. "I never was twice as serious in my whole life. My plan is sound, statesman-like--"

"Shut up, you idiot! I want to read."

"Oh, very well, then! I'll grind the coffee."

Men crept close to the open door on each side of the kitchen. Stella slipped a pan of biscuits in the oven; she laid the table briskly, with a merry clatter of tinware; her face was cheerful and unclouded.

The Major leaned back in one chair, his feet on another; he was deep in the paper; he puffed his pipe. John Wesley Pringle twirled the coffee mill between his knees and sang a merry tune:

_"There were three little mice, playing in the barn-- Inky, d.i.n.ky, doodum, day!

Though they knew they were doing what was very, very wrong-- Inky, d.i.n.ky, doodum, day!

And the song of the owls, it sounded so nice That closer and closer crept the three little mice.

And the owls came and gobbled them----"_

A shadow fell across the floor.

"Hands up!" said the sheriff of Dona Ana. "We want Chris Foy!"

Chapter IV

Navajo, Pima, and Hopi enjoy seven cardinal points--north, east, west, south, up, down, and right here. In these and any intermediate directions from the Vorhis Ranch the diligent posse comitatus made swift and jealous search through the slow hours of afternoon. It commandeered the V H Saddle horses in the corral; it searched for sign in the soft earth of the wandering draws between the dozen low hills scattered round Big Thumb b.u.t.te and Little Thumb b.u.t.te; it rode circles round the ranch; the sign of Christopher Foy's shod horse was found and followed hotfoot by a detachment. Eight men had arrived in the first bunch, with the sheriff; others from every angle joined by twos and threes from hour to hour till the number rose to above a score. A hasty election provided a protesting cook and a horse wrangler; a V H beef was slaughtered.

The posse was rather equally divided between two cla.s.ses--simpletons and fools. The first unquestionably believed Foy to be a base and cowardly murderer, out of law, whom it were most righteous to harry; else, as the storied juryman put it, "How came he there?" The other party were of those who hold that evildoing may permanently prosper and endure.

In the big living room of the adobe ranch house much time had been wasted in cross-questions and foolish answers. Stella Vorhis had been banished to her own room and Sheriff Matt Lisner had privately told off a man to make sure she did not escape.

Lisner and Ben Creagan, crossest of the four examiners, had been prepared to meet by crushing denial an eager and indignant statement from Pringle, adducing the Gadsden House affair and his subsequent companying with Foy as proof positive of Foy's innocence. That no such accusation came from Pringle set these able but mystified deniers entirely at a loss, left the denial high and dry. Creagan mopped his brow furtively.

"Vorhis," said Sheriff Matt, red and angry from an hour's endeavor, "I think you're telling a pack of lies--every word of it. You know mighty well where Foy is."

The Major's gray goatee quivered.

"Guess I'll tell you lies if I want to," he retorted defiantly.

"But, Sheriff, he may be telling us the truth," urged Paul Breslin.

"Foy may very well have ridden here alone before Vorhis got here. I've known the Major a long time. He isn't the man to protect a red-handed murderer."

"Aw, bah! How do you know I won't? How do you know he's a murderer?

You make me sick!" declared the Major hotly. Breslin was an honest, well-meaning farmer; the Major was furious to find such a man allied with Foy's foes--certain sign that other decent blockheads would do likewise. "Matt Lisner tells you Kit Foy is a murderer and you believe him implicitly: Matt Lisner tells you I'm a liar--but you stumble at that. Why? Because you think about me--that's why! Why don't you try that plan about Foy--thinking?"

"But Foy's run away," stammered Breslin, disconcerted.

"Run away, h.e.l.l! He's not here, you mean. According to your precious story, Foy was leaving before Marr was killed--or before you say Marr was killed. Why don't you look for him with the Bar Cross round-up?

There's where he started for, you say?"

"I wired up and had a trusty man go out there quietly at once. He's staying there still--quietly," said the sheriff. "Foy isn't there--and the Bar Cross hasn't heard of the killing yet. It won't do, Major.

Foy's run away."