Ten minutes later seven of the ten young mule teams were heaving into the collars, each team with an apparently lounging stiff in rear of it. In the snap of one’s finger almost results were being doubled, and with a light heart Wing o’ the Crow ran to the cook tent and plunged into a rearrangement of her plans for the evening meal.
Late that evening a deputy of Sheriff Glenn rode into Squawtooth on a tired horse.
Blacky Silk and Kid Strickland had seen the little posse riding toward Stlingbloke and had grown suspicious. They had promptly mounted fresh horses and escaped in the direction of Death Valley. The sheriff and the other two deputies were trailing them as best they could, and the rider to Squawtooth had come to notify Barstow and Dagget to be on the lookout for the escapes.
Shortly before this Squawtooth and his party, not so large now as at first, had returned from the day’s fruitless search. Demarest and Spruce had driven on to their new camp, but the former had promised to drop in at the ranch in his frequent comings and goings back and forth to see if he could be of any service.
Squawtooth was discouraged. Now that the sheriff had assured him of Falcon the Flunky’s innocence, he was ready to make almost any concession to get back his daughter. But no opportunity had been offered him. His great fear was that the two had managed to get entirely out of the country, perhaps by crossing the mountains over obscure trails to the coast side, and that by now they were married. Try though he did, he somehow could not believe the young man to be one who would harm his daughter. No, whatever he might be, he was not that kind. Not long before this, under the stress of his great tribulation, the cattle king had been ready to accuse the flunky of any crime. But his brain had been overheated then, and he had not been responsible. Now he was reasoning calmly, and finally decided that, if it proved to be the price of getting his daughter back, he even would consent to a marriage, no matter if his ambitious plans for her were entirely smashed. He loved her more than all the wealth in the world. Nothing else really mattered. Yes, he would sacrifice everything, pride, money, prestige, to be able to hold her in his arms again and know that she was safe. What a fool he had been!
Next morning they continued the search, but now the party was composed only of such Squawtooth vaqueros as could be spared from working the cows, and a few neighbors whose own business was not pressing—fifteen in all, counting the cattleman and Mart.
All day the search was continued, over country which had virtually been combed before. But night came again, and the searchers knew no more than when they had set out in the morning. And Mrs. Ehrhart reported that no word had come from towns on the inside, whose authorities had been asked to look out for the missing pair.
Webster Canby went to bed to a sleepless night, but was in the saddle again at the head of his men at six o’clock.