Chapter X. Deputies All

At the ranch, whither they rode in haste, Luck meant to leave his boys and go on with the sheriff to town. But the Happy Family flatly refused to be left behind. Even old Aleck Douglas--whom years and trouble had enfeebled until his very presence here with Jean and Lite was a health-seekiing mission in the wonderful air of New Mexico--even old Aleck Douglas stamped his foot at Jean and declared that he was going, along to see that "the boy" got a square deal. There wouldn't be any railroading Luck to the pew for something he didn't do, he asserted with a tragic meaning that wrung the heart of Jean. It took Lite's arguments and Luck's optimism and, finally, the assurance of the sheriff that Luck was not under arrest and was in no danger of it, to keep the old man at the ranch. Also, they promised to return with all speed and not to keep supper waiting, before the two women were satisfied to let them go.

"Oh, Luck Lindsay," Rosemary bethought her to announce just as they were leaving, "you better keep an eye out for Annie, while you're in town. She's gone--and the dog and all her clothes and everything. Maybe she took the train back to the reservation. I just wanted you to know, so if you feel you ought to bother--"

"Annie gone?" Even in his preoccupation the mews came with a stab. "When did she go?"

"We don't know. She set up an awful yowling when you boys went to work. And the dog commenced howling, till it was simply awful. So we rode in to town after the mail, and when we came back she was gone, bag and baggage. We didn't see anything of her on the trail, but she could dodge us if she wanted to-- she's Injun enough for that."

So Luck carried a double load of anxiety with him to town, and the first thing he did when he reached it was to seek, not the beaten cashier who had accused him, but the ticket agent at the depot, and the baggage men--anyone who would be apt to remember Annie-Many-Ponies if she took a train out of town.

You might think that, with so many Indians coming and going at the depot, selling their wares and making picturesque setting for the curios which are purveyed there, that Luck stood a very slight chance of gaining any information whatever. But a Sioux squaw in Albuquerque would be as noticeable as a Hindoo. Pueblos, Navajos--they may come and go unnoticed because of their numbers. But an Indian of another tribe and style of dress would be conspicuous enough to be remembered. So, when no one remembered seeing Annie-Many-Ponies, Luck dismissed the conjecture that she had taken the train, and turned his attention to picking up the trail of the bank- robbers.

Here the Happy Family, with Applehead and Lite Avery, had managed to accomplish a good deal in a very short time. The Native Son, for instance, had ridden straight out from the bank into the Mexican quarter, as soon as he learned that the red