ss-roads, over dinner tables, in
office, bank, and store. S. Behrman placarded the town with a notice
of $500.00 reward for the ex-engineer's capture, dead or alive, and the
express company supplemented this by another offer of an equal amount.
The country was thick with parties of horsemen, armed with rifles
and revolvers, recruited from Visalia, Goshen, and the few railroad
sympathisers around Bonneville and Guadlajara. One after another of
these returned, empty-handed, covered with dust and mud, their horses
exhausted, to be met and passed by fresh posses starting out to continue
the pursuit. The sheriff of Santa Clara County sent down his bloodhounds
from San Jose--small, harmless-looking dogs, with a terrific bay--to
help in the chase. Reporters from the San Francisco papers appeared,
interviewing every one, sometimes even accompanying the searching bands.
Horse hoofs clattered over the roads at night; bells were rung, the
"Mercury" issued extra after extra; the bloodhounds bayed, gun butts
clashed on the asphalt pavements of Bonneville; accidental discharges of
revolvers brought the whole town into the street; farm hands called
to each other across the fences of ranch-divisions--in a word, the
country-side was in an uproar.

And all to no effect. The hoof-marks of Dyke's horse had been traced in
the mud of the road to within a quarter of a mile of the foot-hills and
there irretrievably lost. Three days after the hold-up, a sheep-herder
was found who had seen the highwayman on a ridge in the higher
mountains, to the northeast of Taurusa. And that was absolutely all.
Rumours were thick, promising clews were discovered, new trails taken
up, but nothing transpired to bring the pursuers and pursued any closer
together. Then, after ten days of strain, public interest began to flag.
It was believed that Dyke had succeeded in getting away. If this was
true, he had gone to the southward, after gaining the mountains, and
it would be his intention to work out of the range somewhere near the
southern part of the San Joaquin, near Bakersfield. Thus, the sheriffs,
marshals, and deputies decided. They had hunted too many criminals in
these mountains before not to know the usual courses taken. In time,
Dyke MUST come out of the mountains to get water and provisions. But
this time passed, and from not one of the watched points came any word
of his appearance. At last the posses began to disband. Little by little
the pursuit was gi