e's a white man--fo'man of the Concho, and my boss, onct."

"Well, you're lucky if what he says is so. But that don't square you
with the other deal."

"There's only one man that could do that," said Pete. "And I reckon he
ain't ridin' where you could git him."

"That's all right, Annersley. But even if you didn't get Brent, you
were on that job. You were running with a tough bunch."

"Who's got my gun?" queried Pete abruptly.

"It's over to the station with the rest of your stuff."

"Well, it wa'n't a forty-five that put Brent out of business. My gun
is."

"You can tell that to the sheriff of Sanborn County. And you'll have a
hard time proving that you never packed any other gun."

"You say it's the sheriff of Sanborn County that'll be wantin' to know?"

"Yes. We're holding you for him."

"That's different. I reckon I kin talk to _him_."

"Well, you'll get a chance. He's in town---waiting to take you over to
Sanborn."

"I sure would like to have a talk with him," said Pete. "Would you
mind tellin' him that?"

"Why--no. We'll tell him."

"'Cause I aim to take a little walk this afternoon," asserted Pete,
"and mebby he'd kind o' like to keep me comp'ny."

"You'll have company--if you take a walk," said one of the detectives
significantly.

CHAPTER XL

THE MAN DOWNSTAIRS

Pete did not return to the veranda to finish his puzzle game with
little Ruth. He smiled rather grimly as he realized that he had a
puzzle game of his own to solve. He lay on the cot and his eyes closed
as he reviewed the vivid events in his life, from the beginning of the
trail, at Concho, to its end, here in El Paso. It seemed to spread out
before him like a great map: the desert and its towns, the hills and
mesas, trails and highways over which men scurried like black and red
ants, commingling, separating, hastening off at queer tangents, meeting
in combat, disappearing in crevices, reappearing and setting off again
in haste, searching for food, bearing strange burdens, scrambling
blindly over obstacles--collectively without seeming purpose--yet
individually bent upon some quest, impetuous and headstrong in their
strange activities. "And gittin' nowhere," soliloquized Pete, "except
in trouble."

He thought of the letter from Bailey, and, sitting up, re-read it
slowly. So Steve Gary had survived, only to meet the inevitable end of
his kind. Well, Gary was always hunting trouble . . . Roth, the
storekeep