From his vest pocket Fred Glenn removed a blue pasteboard cigarette-paper cover and silently passed it to Canby.
“Keep still about it,” he cautioned.
Canby opened the cover and read:
Blacky Silk, Blacky Silk, Blacky Silk.
“Why, that’s plumb foolishness,” he decided. “What’s Blacky Silk mean?”
But before the sheriff could make reply the cowman was half out of his chair, the bit of pasteboard held before him, his eyes wide and fastened on it.
“Why, Fred!” he cried. “That—that looks like my little girl’s writin’! It sure is. Why, man alive, Manzanita wrote that!”
It required some time for Squawtooth Canby to convince the sheriff that his troubles had not deranged his mind. Even then the sheriff would not believe until the cattleman had brought from the house a packet of treasured letters, written to him by his daughter while she was in boarding school in Los Angeles. Then Glenn became convinced.
“Canby,” he said, “I’m more up a tree than ever now. Why, this here is plumb loco! Get the boy, Squawtooth, and le’s hear what he’s got to say.”
Some of the search party that had accompanied Squawtooth from the mountains were at dinner now, and Mart, with a piece of bread and butter in his hand, was dragged from the table.