mithy handed the telephone to the sheriff. "Someone's anxious to talk to you," he said. He searched his pockets hurriedly, found a ten-dollar bill which he laid on the sheriff's desk. "That will cover it," he said with a new note in his voice. "Perhaps you're not just the man for this job, sheriff. It's going to be a whole lot too hot for you to handle."
He had turned quickly toward the door, but something in the sheriff's excited voice checked him. "Burned? Wiped out, you say?"
Halfway across the room Smithy could hear another hoarse voice in the telephone. The sheriff repeated the words. "Red devils! They wasn't Injuns? The whole town of Seven Palms destroyed!"
"I thought," said Smithy softly to himself, "that we'd have to go down there to find them, and instead they're out looking for us. Yes, I think this will be decidedly too hot for you to handle, sheriff." He turned and bolted out the door.
n attentive audience was awaiting Gordon Smith on his arrival in Sacramento. Smithy's father was not one to be kept waiting even by the Governor of the state. Also, Smithy was coming from the Tonah Basin region, and the news of the destruction of the desert town of Seven Palms had preceded him. Even the swift planes of the Coastal Service could not match the speed of the radio news.
There were only two men in the room when Smithy entered. One of them, tall, heavily built, as square-shouldered as Smithy, came forward and put his two hands on the young man's shoulders. Their greetings were brief.
"Well, son?" asked the older man, and packed a world of questioning into the interrogation.
"O. K., Dad," said Smithy simply.