leader, had always been ready for
any daredeviltry that came to his mind. He had been the kind to go the
limit in whatever he undertook, to play it to a finish in spite of
opposition. And what a man is he must be to the end. In his slow, troubled
fashion, Mac wondered if his old side partner's streak of lawlessness
would take him as far as a hold-up. Of course it would not, he assured
himself; but he could not get the ridiculous notion out of his head. It
drew his thoughts, and at last his steps toward the express office where
the hold-up had taken place.

He opened a futile conversation with Hawley, while Len Rogers, the guard
who had not made good, looked at him with a persistent, hostile eye.

"Hard luck," the cattleman condoled.

"That's what you think, is it? You and your friends, too, I reckon."

Mackenzie looked at the guard, who was plainly sore in every humiliated
crevice of his brain. "I ain't speaking for my friends, Len, but for
myself," he said amiably.

Rogers laughed harshly. "Didn't know but what you might be speaking for
one of your friends."

"They can all speak for themselves when they have got anything to say."

Hawley sent a swift, warning look toward his subordinate. The latter came
to time sulkily. "I didn't say they couldn't."

Mackenzie drifted from this unfriendly atmosphere to the courthouse. He
found Sheriff Bolt in his office. It was that official's busy day, but he
found time not only to see the owner of the Fiddleback, but to press upon
him cordially an invitation to sit down and smoke. The Scotchman wanted to
discuss the robbery, but was shy about attacking the subject. While he
boggled at it, Bolt was off on another tack.

Inside of a quarter of an hour the sheriff had found out all he wanted to
know about the poker game, Cullison's financial difficulties, and the news
that Luck had liquidated his poker debt since breakfast time. He had
turned the simple cattleman's thoughts inside out, was aware of the doubt
Billie had scarcely admitted to himself, and knew all he did except the
one point Luck had asked him not to mention. Moreover, he had talked so
casually that his visitor had no suspicion of what he was driving at.

Mackenzie attempted a little sleuthing of his own. "This hold-up fellow
kind of slipped one over on you last night, Bolt."

"Maybe so, and maybe not."

"Got a clew, have you?"

"Oh, yes--yes." The sheriff looked straight at him. "I've a notion his
initials