listened and heard the noisy hoofs of a pair of horses and the crunching of wheels. A minute later two men in a buckboard drove up. The sheriff and Sam Hogg walked forward to greet them. Dutchy drew Toothpick aside.
“Some day yuh’ll dig yuhr grave with yuhr tongue,” he growled. “Don’t tell no one that that gent talked to us private.”
“But he didn’t say nothin’ I could understand,” Toothpick protested.
“Maybe the Lava Gang wouldn’t believe yuh,” Dutchy said grimly.
Judge Ransom, one of the two men in the buckboard, climbed out and listened gravely to what the sheriff had to say. He was a man of fifty-five, with the face of a scholar.
“Who’s that jasper?” Dutchy demanded as he nodded toward the buckboard.
“With the judge?”
“Yeh.”
“Gent named Bill Anderson. He’s the new political boss around here,” Toothpick explained.
The man was in his forties, of medium height, and stockily built. He had a round, apple-cheeked face and a jovial manner – one of those men whom others like on sight and hail as a boon companion. Yet a close observer might have detected something about the eyes that seemed to contradict the first impression.
“He rides around with the judge a hull lot,” Toothpick explained further. “Why for did yuh ask?”
“Knew a gent what looks like him once,” Dutchy muttered, with his eyes still watching Anderson, “twenty years ago.”
“Then it can’t be him.”
“Might have been his father,” Dutchy grunted.
They walked toward the others and arrived in time to hear the judge ask them:
“Who do you suppose did this?”
There was a moment of silence which was broken by Bill Anderson.
“I was over in Arizona last week, and the papers were talking about some renegade Apache who were raiding along the border. Maybe they have worked up this way,” he suggested.
“Maybe so,” the sheriff said doubtfully.
Silent Moore, the sheriff’s deputy, carefully examined the mutilated man for a moment; then, for the first time since his arrival, he opened his lips.
“I’ve fit the Apache – ’tain’t their work,” he said.
“Nonsense, man, it’s impossible to tell,” Bill Anderson exclaimed, and the others, with the exception of Toothpick and Dutchy, were inclined to agree with him.
“Greasers did that work – Apaches would have tracked down the man out there and killed him, and they would have used a club on the woman,” the deputy insisted stubbornly.
“Sure yuh’re right,” Sam Hogg cried with an oath. “White men or devils started in to make it look like Injuns – got scared before they finished and run for it.”
“The Lava Gang!” Toothpick cried excitedly. “Judge, where’s ‘Snippets’ and Mary?”
The judge’s face went white as he whispered: “You – you mean that letter from them?”
“Yeah, but where are the girls?” Toothpick asked again.
“They’re safe. I took them over to visit Sam Hogg’s wife at the Frying Pan Ranch this evening. Bill and I were coming back when we saw the fire.”
Toothpick relaxed and uttered a sigh of relief. The Lava Gang sometimes stole girls for ransom and held them across the border.
“What’s this – what letter?” the sheriff asked sharply.
“You all know that I am to preside at the trial of Pete Cable for murder, which takes place a week from to-day. Last week I received a warning signed by the Lava Gang, saying if I did not see that Cable was acquitted, some terrible thing would happen to me.”
“What did yuh do with the letter?” the sheriff demanded.
The judge shrugged. “I tore it up.”
“You are not going to pay any attention to the letter?” Bill Anderson asked curiously as his eyes searched the judge’s face.
“I intend to see justice done,” the judge replied firmly.
Bill Anderson pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. The others turned and frowned at him. He smiled apologetically.
“No offense, judge. I was admiring your courage. If, as you seem to think, the Lava Gang did this, I would stay in after dark,” the plump politician said.
“To blazes with the Lava Gang! We’ll have the whole bunch in jail before the trial is finished,” Sam Hogg exploded.
Bill Anderson lit a cigarette, then smiled.
“You have to catch them first.”
“We’ll do it.”
Sam Hogg spoke positively, but somehow his words brought cold comfort to the judge.
Some fifteen miles to the southwest there was a great barren waste of lava rock. The Lava Gang had received their name from the fact that after each raid their trail was lost on the smooth slopes of the lava fields. No one knew a single member of the gang. It was suspected that they had their real headquarters in Cannondale. They were as elusive as ghosts. The thought that a member of the gang might be present at that moment made the judge grow thoughtful.
Sam Hogg growled like an angry terrier.
“If we don’t trail ’em to-morrow, I’ll send for that little hellion, ‘Jim-twin’ Allen. I’m bettin’ he’d trail ’em. I hears he’s better than a bloodhound.”
Bill Anderson laughed.
“He’d probably throw in with the Lava Gang himself.”
“Him? Not any!” Toothpick snorted. “He wouldn’t have no truck with hombres what steal girls. He’ll come a-runnin’ and a-shootin’ if I tells him about it.”
“Fairy tales,” the judge snorted.
“You tell him to come, judge, and watch his smoke,” Toothpick pleaded.
“A judge ask help from an outlaw who is wanted for murder in a dozen States?” Anderson laughed again.
“You gents stop gabbin’ and help me get this hombre in the buckboard,” the sheriff called.
A bed of blankets was made on the floor of the wagon, and the unconscious man was lifted in.
“Mr. Anderson, yuh drive him easy to town,” directed the sheriff. “An’ if he starts talkin’, yuh listen hard, ’cause I got a hunch that hombre will sure tell us a heap more about the Lava Gang than we knows now.”
“I’ll certain listen if he starts talking,” Anderson replied. He climbed
