u say so."

"I'm feelin' a heap easier--in my leg."

He put the two photographs into the case, closed it, and handed it to
Bud with a sigh.

"Maybe you will meet Sadie some day," said Bud, taking the case.

"Maybe," Jeff replied, with an indifference which made the boy stare.
Jeff was gazing across the foothills with a queer steely glint in his
blue eyes. Bud ran into the house.

Instantly, Jeff was alert. He pulled a tattered handbill from his
pocket, smoothed it out, and read it with darkening brows. The bill
offered a handsome reward for any information which would lead to the
arrest of one Sillett, a defaulting assistant-cashier of a Santa
Barbara bank. Sillett and his _daughter_ had disappeared in a
springboard, drawn by a buckskin horse, and were supposed to have
travelled south, in the hope of crossing the border into Mexico. At
the head of the bill was a rough woodcut of Sillett. Jeff crumpled up
the sheet of paper, and stuffed it into his pocket.

"It's him--sure 'nough," he growled. Then he gasped suddenly, "Jee-
roosalem! Bud is a rosebud!"

He smiled, frowned, and tugged at his moustache as Bud appeared with
some more hot water. Jeff blushed.

"You're real kind, but I hate to give ye all this trouble."

Bud, after bathing the swollen leg, glanced up sharply.

"You're as red as the king of hearts. You ain't going to have a
fever?"

"I do feel kind o' feverish," Jeff admitted.

Bud lightly touched his forehead.

"Why, it's burning hot, I do declare."

Jeff closed his eyes, murmuring confusedly, "I b'lieve it'd help me
some if you was to stroke my derned head."

Bud obediently smoothed his crisp curls. Jeff's forehead was certainly
hot, and it grew no cooler beneath the touch of Bud's fingers.

"Hello!" exclaimed Bud, a few minutes later.

"Here's Dad coming across the creek."

* * * * *

Sillett advanced leisurely, not seeing the figures under the live-oak.
He carried a tin box and a butterfly-net. He was dressed in the brown
over-alls of Southern California, stained and discoloured by sun and
tar-weed. His face, brown as the over-alls, had, however, a pinched
look, and in his eyes lay a curious tenseness familiar enough to
deputy-sheriffs. For the rest, he had a mild forehead, which he was
wiping as he crossed the creek, a pleasant mouth, and a chin a thought
too delicately modelled for a man. He walked soberly, with the
dragging stride of a tired pedestrian. H