e doorway--a slender, lithe
figure that moved on springs. Out of its sardonic, devil-may-care face
gleamed malevolent eyes which rested for a moment on Dailey, before they
came home to the sheriff.

"And what is it Leroy would never do?" a gibing voice demanded silkily.

Scott pulled himself together and tried to bluff, but at the look on his
chief's face the words died in his throat.

Collins did not lift a finger or move an eyelash, but with the first
word a wary alertness ran through him and starched his figure to
rigidity. He gathered himself together for what might come.

"Well, I am waiting. What it is Leroy would never do?" The voice carried
a scoff with it, the implication that his very presence had stricken
conspirators dumb.

Collins offered the explanation.

"Mr. Dailey was beginning a testimonial of your virtues just as you
right happily arrived in time to hear it. Perhaps he will now proceed."

But Dailey had never a word left. His blunders had been crying ones,
and his chief's menacing look had warned him what to expect. The courage
oozed out of his heart, for he counted himself already a dead man.

"And who are you, my friend, that make so free with Wolf Leroy's name?"
It was odd how every word of the drawling sentence contrived to carry a
taunt and a threat with it, strange what a deadly menace the glittering
eyes shot forth.

"My name is Collins."

"Sheriff of Pica County?"

"Yes."

The eyes of the men met like rapiers, as steady and as searching as cold
steel. Each of them was appraising the rare quality of his opponent in
this duel to the death that was before him.

"What are you doing here? Ain't Pica County your range?"

"I've been discussing with your friend the late hold-up on the
Transcontinental Pacific."

"Ah!" Leroy knew that the sheriff was serving notice on them of his
purpose to run down the bandits. Swiftly his mind swept up the factors
of the situation. Should he draw now and chance the result, or wait for
a more certain ending? He decided to wait, moved by the consideration
that even if he were victorious the lawyers were sure to draw out of the
fat-brained Scott the cause of the quarrel.

"Well, that don't interest me any, though I suppose you have to explain
a heap how come they to hold you up and take your gun. I'll leave you
and your jelly-fish Scott to your gabfest. Then you better run back home
to Tucson. We don't go much on visiting sheriffs here." He turned on