Chapter X. Deputies All - Page 2

automobile had gone up Silver Street and turned south on Fourth. By the time Luck reached the bank Miguel came loping back with the news that the red machine had crossed the lower bridge and had turned up toward Atrisco, that little Mexican hamlet which lies between the river and the bluffs where the white sand of the desert spills over into the nearest corrals and little pastures.

The others had learned definitely that Bill Holmes had manipulated the fake camera while the bank was being robbed, and that the man with him, who bad also driven the machine, was a certain chauffeur of colorless personality and an unsavory reputation among other drivers; and that the number of the automobile was a matter of conjecture, since three different men who were positive they remembered it gave three different numbers.

In company with the sheriff they called upon the cashier, who was in bed with his head bandaged and his nerves very much unstrung. He was much calmer, however, than when he had hysterically accused Luck of betraying him into putting the money out to be stolen. He admitted now that he was not at all sure of the voice which talked with him over the phone; indeed, now when he heard luck speak, he felt extremely doubtful of the similarity of that other voice. He protested against being blamed for being too confiding. He had never dreamed, he said, that anyone could be so bold as to plan a thing like that. It all sounded straight, about the spoiled negative and so forth. He was very sorry that he had caused Luck Lindsay any inconvenience or annoyance, and he begged Luck's pardon several times in the course of his explanation of the details.

They left him still protesting and apologizing and explaining and touching his bandaged head with self-pitying tenderness. In the street Luck turned to the sheriff as though his mind was made up to something which argument could not alter in the slightest degree.

"I realize that in a way I'm partly responsible for this," he said crisply. "The scenes I took the other day made this play possible for Ramon and his bunch. What you'd better do right now is to swear Applehead and me in as deputies--and any of the boys that want to come along and help round up that bunch. We'll do it, if it's to be done at all. I feel I kind of owe it to that poor simp in there to get the money back--sabe? And I owe it to myself to bring in Ramon and Bill Holmes, and whoever else is with 'em on this; young Rojas we know is for one."

"Where do you aim to look for 'em, if you don't mind telling?" Hank Miller was staring doubtfully down at Luck.

"Where? Miguel here says they went toward Atrisco. That means they're hitting for the Navajo reservation. There's three hundred miles of country straight west, and not so much as a telegraph pole! Mighty few service stations for the machine, too, when you think of it--and rough country to travel over. If