. You should be back
between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and
bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know.
You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at
your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait."

"Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished
into the night.

While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger
spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your
place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with
breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place
the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will
likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."

"Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the rancher as he mounted.
"You know they'll be on the job."

"You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the mountaineer rode away.
Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the
canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after
sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into
the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up
Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley
neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've
found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."

When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the
artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more
that can be done, until daylight."

Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his
hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon
muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words
that he was not tired.

"You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of
this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible,
to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us.
Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't
sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."

As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I
knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in
my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands
before you did, unless it