While the two friends were riding toward the little clump of trees west of the Question-Mark ranch visitors rode slowly up to the door of the ranchhouse and one of them dismounted. The shield he wore on his open vest shone in the sun with nickel brightness, but his face was anything but bright. The job which had been cut out for him was not to his liking and had destroyed his peace of mind, and the peace of mind of the two deputies, who needed no reflection upon their subordinate positions to keep them in the sheriff's rear. What little assurance they might have started with received a jolt soon after they had left town, when a gruff and unmistakably unfriendly voice had asked, with inconsiderate harshness and profanity, their intended destination and their business. At last allowed to pass on after quite some humiliation from the hidden sentries, they now were entering upon the dangerous part of their mission.
Corwin stepped up to the door and knocked, a formality which he never dispensed with on the Question-Mark. Other visitors usually walked right in and found a chair or sat on the table, but it never should be said to Corwin's discredit that an officer of the law was rude and ignorant in such a well-known and long-established form of etiquette. So Sheriff Corwin knocked.
"Come in!" impatiently bawled a loud and rude voice.
The sheriff obeyed and looked around the door casing. "Ah, hello, Mac," he said in cheery greeting.
"Mac who?" roared the man at the table.
"McCullough," said the man at the door, correcting himself. "How are you?"
"Yo're one full-blooded d—n fool of a sheriff," sneered the trail-boss. "Where's them two prisoners I been waitin' for?"
"They got away. Somebody helped 'em bust th' jail. I sent word back to you by yore own men."
"Shore, I got it; I know that. That's no excuse a-tall!" retorted the trail-boss. "I went an' sent word down to Twitchell on th' jump that his fool way worked an' that I was goin' to send him th' men he wanted. Then you let 'em bust out of jail! Fine sort of a fool you made of me! Where's yore reward now, that you was spendin' so fast? An' what'll Twitchell say, an' do? He wants th' bank robbers, not excuses; an' more'n all he wanted th' man that shot Ridley. It ain't only a question of pertectin' th' men workin' for him, but it's personal, too. Ridley was an old friend of his'n—an' he'll raise h—l till he gets th' man that killed him. What about it? What have you done since they got away?"
"We trailed 'em, but they lost us," growled Corwin. "Reckon they got up on that hard ground an' then lit out, jumpin' th' country as fast as they could. Kane had it on 'em, cold an' proper—but I had my doubts, somehow. I ain't quittin'; I'm watchin' an' layin' back, an' I'm figgerin' on deliverin' th' man that got Ridley."