blew into my office. She's a smart
woman. Her husband was a breed, dairy hand on the Clark ranch for years.
Lizzie was the first Indian woman in these parts to go to school, and
besides being smart, she's got Indian sight. You know these Indians.
When they aren't blind with trachoma they can see further and better
than a telescope."

Bassett made an effort.

"What's that got to do with Jud Clark?" he asked.

"Well, she blew in. You know there was a reward out for him, and I guess
it still stands. I'll have to look it up, for if Maggie Donaldson wasn't
crazy some one will turn him up some day, probably. Well, Lizzie blew
in, and she said she'd seen Jud Clark. Saw him standing at a second
story window of this hotel. Can you beat that?"

"Not for pure invention. Hardly."

"That's what I said at first. But I don't know. In some ways it would
be like him. He wouldn't mind coming back and giving us the laugh, if
he thought he could get away with it. He didn't know fear. Only time he
ever showed funk was when he beat it after the shooting, and then he was
full of hootch, and on the edge of D.T.'s."

"A man doesn't play jokes with the hangman's rope," Bassett commented,
dryly. He looked at his watch and rose. "It's a good story, but I
wouldn't wear out any trouser-seats sitting here watching for him. If
he's living he's taken pretty good care for ten years not to put his
head in the noose; and I'd remember this, too. Wherever he is, if he is
anywhere, he's probably so changed his appearance that Telescope Lizzie
wouldn't know him. Or you either."

"Probably," the sheriff said, comfortably. "Still I'm not taking any
chances. I'm up for reelection this fall, and that Donaldson woman's
story nearly queered me. I've got a fellow at the railroad station, just
for luck."

Bassett went up the stairs and along the corridor, deep in dejected
thought. The trap of his own making was closing, and his active mind was
busy with schemes for getting Dick away before it shut entirely.

It might be better, in one way, to keep Livingstone there in his room
until the alarm blew over. On the other hand, Livingstone himself had
to be dealt with, and that he would remain quiescent under the
circumstances was unlikely. The motor to the main line seemed to be the
best thing. True, he would have first to get Livingstone to agree to go.
That done, and he did not underestimate its difficulty, there was the
question of getting him out of the ho