asked Swivel, glowering with one eye and leering with the other. “That’s El Halcón, the outlaw.”
“Huh!”
“That’s right,” said Swivel. “The notorious El Halcón. Looks like a hawk, don’t he? Like one of those big gray mountain devils that’ll give an eagle his comeuppance. Yep, name sorta fits him.”
“But how come him and Sheriff Carter are so chummy, if he’s an outlaw?” demanded Prate.
“Oh, Slade—that’s his name, Walt Slade—always takes sheriffs in tow,” Swivel explained airily. “Reckon they figure it’s best to have him close so they can keep an eye on him.”
Outside the saloon the sheriff paused, glancing questioningly at Slade.
“Telegraph office first,” the Ranger decided. “Then we’ll visit the bank president or cashier and notify them of what happened.”
The message for Sheriff Davenport of Oldham County was sent.
“May be an answer,” Slade said to the operator. “If so, hold it for the sheriff.”
Next they repaired to the home of the bank president, on Pierce Street. That official did a very good job of swearing himself, for a bank president, when informed of what had happened.
“The so-and-so’s made a good haul,” he growled. “I can’t say as to the exact amount, but there must have been something between thirty and forty thousand dollars in that box, judging from what’s usually sent to us.”
“Insured?” Slade asked. The banker nodded.
“We won’t lose anything, but it’ll hit the express company hard,” he said. “Up will go their premiums. Maybe the insurance people will drop them and they’ll have trouble getting another to take them on. What you going to do about it, Carter?”
“I’m hanged if I know, Bob,” the sheriff replied wearily. “It happened in Potter County, but Slade here is of the opinion that by now they are over in Oldham County and perhaps down in the Canadian Valley.”
The banker shot Slade a shrewd glance. “That’s the way you figure it, eh?” he asked.
“I’m not committing myself absolutely,” the Ranger replied quietly. “I merely voiced an opinion, a little while ago.”
“Hmmm!” said the bank president. “And you might possibly change your opinion?”
“Not beyond the realm of possibility,” Slade conceded. Another shrewd glance from the banker, but when he spoke it was to the sheriff.
“Got a notion it wouldn’t be a bad idea to listen to him, Brian,” he said. “Got a notion.”
The sheriff nodded but did not further commit himself one way or the other.
Outside the banker’s residence the sheriff, though not a jovial soul, gave vent to a loud chuckle.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “that here the sheriff of the county is taking advice from El Halcón, the notorious owl-hoot.”
“Well, there’s an old saying,” Slade returned, “ ‘Set a thief to catch a thief.’ ”
Sheriff Carter chuckled again. “You may have something there, son,” he admitted. “Well, got anything to suggest?”
“I have,” Slade replied. “That is, if you’re willing to follow a hunch that has very little on which to base it other than what I’ve learned from experience, some of it not pleasant, just how Veck Sosna is liable to operate.”
“I’ll follow anything that promises results,” the sheriff replied. “Right now I’m on something of a spot, and there’s an election coming up this fall. Bob Evans, the banker, ain’t feeling very good about this business and he packs considerable influence. Let’s hear what you have to say.”
Slade answered with a question. “How many deputies have you?”
“Three, all good men.”
“Can you round them up in a hurry?”
The sheriff nodded.
“Three with you and I will be enough,” Slade said. “Get hold of them and we’ll ride west; you can swear me in as a special, if you care to.”
“West?” repeated the sheriff.
“That’s right, on the chance that the hellions will turn and head back this way, which I’m of a notion they’re doing just about now.”
“You mean to say you think they might come back to Amarillo?” the sheriff demanded incredulously.
“Why not?” Slade countered. “Their faces were not seen. Neither the driver nor the guard could identify them. They’d be perfectly safe in Amarillo, so far as they know.”
“How about the row they kicked up in the Trail End?” said the sheriff. “They’d be recognized as doing that, all right. Why couldn’t I throw them in the calaboose for disturbing the peace?”
“What row they kicked up in the Trail End?” Slade answered. “I listened to the talk at the bar. Everybody was pretty well agreed that those two tinhorn gamblers started the row. You can be sure they are not going to sign a complaint. With everybody confident that they pulled a little chore of cold decking, they’ll be out of sight for a while. You can sometimes get by with a killing, but not with an engineered misdeal. They know it You’d just get yourself laughed at. Sosna knows that and is not in the least worried about trouble being made for him because of that little rukus in which nobody was cashed in and the possible complaining witnesses not present. But there is another angle. . . .”
“What?” asked Carter.
“Just this,” Slade replied. “I don’t think that Sosna knows I’m in this section. Otherwise, knowing I am quite conversant with his methods, he’d very likely not try it. As it is, I figure it’s just the very thing he’s likely to do. It would relieve him and his bunch from possible suspicion; nobody would suspect a bunch of stage robbers would be so brazen as to show up here in town in but a few hours after pulling a holdup. And that’s just the way Sosna works.”
“Dadgum it! you’ve sold me a notion against my better judgment,” the sheriff said querulously. “How the devil did you do it?”
Slade laughed, and did not explain.
During the course of the conversation they had been walking to the sheriff’s office. A light burned within and they found the three deputies whiling away the time at cards. They stared at the man whose exploits, even though some of them might be regarded as questionable, were the talk of the Southwest, when Sheriff Carter performed the introductions.
Briefly, Carter explained what he had in mind. “It’s Slade’s idea,” he concluded, adding gravely, but with a twinkle in his eye, “He don’t like for other owlhoots to horn in.”
“I can understand that,” observed Deputy Bill Harley, a lanky individual whose leathery countenance was as impassive
