with them. They
are just travelling through,--sheriff's party from somewhere, going
somewhere after somebody."

"What's that, Mr. Ellsworth?" the woman from Kansas came out and
inquired; for she knew better than he what that meant. "Sheriff? Was
he a tall, slim man, longish mustache, sorter thin?"

Ellsworth nodded; the woman wiped her hands on her blue-checked apron.
Constance glanced at her serious face, and wondered.

"Then it's Ben Stillson," the woman from Kansas said, "the sheriff of
Blanco. He's after somebody. Did he summons any of our men along?"

"I don't know, madam," answered Ellsworth. The woman said no more; she
only watched and listened.

It was this posse, headed by the sheriff of Blanco, that Dan Anderson
and the Littlest Girl saw when they reached a point midway between
Uncle Jim Brothers's hotel and the post-office. The little group of
riders, dusty and travel-stained, had come at a steady trot down the
street. Stillson, tall, grim-featured, and bronzed, looked neither to
the right nor to the left. He stopped, and ordered his men to dismount
and eat. They swung out of their saddles without a word, loosening the
cinches to breathe their horses. The men of Heart's Desire began to
gather around them.

"What's up, Ben?" asked McKinney, the one most apt to be concerned; for
cow men had borne the brunt of outlawry in that land for more than a
generation. "Has Chacon come across from Arizona, or has the Kid broke
out again?"

The sheriff looked at him gravely. "The Kid's out," said he. "We had
him and two others at Seven Rivers, but he broke out four days ago. He
killed the jailer and a couple of Mexicans farther up the river.
There's four in his bunch now, and we've trailed them this far.
They're likely headed for Sumner. We dropped in here, across the
Patos, to get a couple of men or so. How are you fixed here?"

"Wait till I get a Winchester," said McKinney, briefly, and started
down the street.

"Whiteman," Doc Tomlinson volunteered, "you 'tend to my drug store
while I'm away, and if anybody wants any drugs, you go get 'em."

"You all hold on a minute," said Curly, hurrying forward, "while I run
over home and git saddled up." He did not see the Littlest Girl
approaching, but the sheriff did.

"Never mind, Curly," said the sheriff, quietly, pointing to her. "I
want one more man, a single man."

"You, Curly!" interrupted his spouse, "you stay right where you are.
You get