ed against Jim Halliday, himself running to learn the cause of the
uproar. The Chinaman knew Halliday's office, and with wild gestures
and screaming chatter demanded that he should go back and arrest the
man who had despoiled him of his dearest possession. Halliday,
guessing that his enemy was too drunk to offer much resistance,
hastened at once to the task, and in five minutes Nick Ellhorn was
locked in the jail.

Emerson Mead at once went to work to get his friend out on bail. He
saw the sheriff, John Daniels, go into the White Horse saloon and
hurried after him. As they stood facing each other, leaning against
the bar and talking earnestly, Mead saw Daniels flash a look of
intelligence and nod his head slightly to some one who had entered
from a back room toward which Emerson's back was turned. Instinctively
he reached for his gun, and Jim Halliday grabbed his right wrist with
both hands while John Daniels seized his left. With the first touch of
their fingers, the remembrance flashed through his brain that he had
left his revolver on the table in his room. He would have thought it
as impossible to forget that as to forget his trousers, but the thing
was done, and here was the result. He shrugged his shoulders and said
quietly:

"You've caught me unarmed, boys. I'm at your service--this time."

They looked at him in doubting surprise. To catch Emerson Mead unarmed
seemed a most unlikely fairy tale. The two men held his arms and
Daniels called a third to search him. Mead flushed and bit his lip.

"I'm not used to having my word doubted," he said, "but I can't blame
you for doubting it this time. I can hardly believe it myself. Jim,
you've struck just the one chance in a thousand years."

Halliday laughed. "Well, I've been lucky twice to-day, and I reckon I
haven't worn out the run yet."

Mead smiled indulgently down from his superior height, and said: "Work
it while it runs, Jim; work it while it runs. You can have your
innings now, but mine won't be long coming."

"Well, you won't have any chance to get yourself hauled over the back
wall this time, I'll tell you that right now."

They hurried their prisoner off to jail, and in a few minutes he also
was locked behind thick adobe walls.

CHAPTER XII

Albert Wellesly never made a new investment, nor allowed any change to
be made in property in which he was interested, without first making a
thorough personal inspection. For that reason he spent a num