"Oh! very well, sir, don't excite yourself about my movements," remarked Sheriff Bob, assuming a pompous air, though Allan thought he winked slily in his direction while speaking. "You will find no cause to complain to my superiors concerning any shortcomings on my part. And up to now, you must admit I have been unflagging in my endeavor to locate the fugitive from justice. Make your mind easy, Mr. Rawson, I see my duty clear in the premises, and can be depended on to do it."
Watching his chance a little later Allan followed the sheriff, when the latter went to get a drink of water near by. Artemus looked as though he wanted to keep them from having any communications out of his range of hearing; but he sank back in his seat again, plainly afraid of invoking the anger of the big sheriff, who, he already felt, did not feel any too warmly toward him and his cause.
And as they sat down by the little stream to dip up some of the clear water with the tin cup Sheriff Bob had made sure to fetch along, Allan made it a point to tell the other all that Aleck had said about the motives of his father's lawyer brother, and how for a long time he had bothered the widow, trying to find out if she knew anything about the hidden mine; which until lately of course she had not.
Allan knew how to talk. Moreover, he had an interested listener in the officer, and that counted for a great deal. Besides, he felt deeply for the persecuted boy, and his heart was filled with a desire to assist him secure the legacy left by his father, than whom no living soul had ever gazed upon the hidden mine.
Sheriff Bob listened to all that the boy said. Several times he scratched his head reflectively, and made a grimace, as though conflicting forces had begun to engage him in an inward war.
And when finally Allan declared that he now knew all, the officer drew a long breath, and remarked, quietly:
"I seem to smell a pretty good-sized rat about this game Mr. Artemus is putting up; but as I said, the warrant he swore out is in my hands for serving, and I just reckon I'll have to do my sworn duty and arrest this same Aleck——that is, if so be he shows up while we're around here."
Allan looked him squarely in the eye; and he was sure one of the lids above the blue orbs of the official dropped a little in a suggestive way.
He too drew a long breath, and with a smile on his boyish face, said as he arose:
"Thank you, Mr. Sheriff, thank you very much!"