"Two troopers couldn't cover a great deal of prairie," remarked another. "Guess he might have slipped through between them; that is, if he's not hanging round here somewhere waiting for a chance to break away."
Murray saw the gleam in the corporal's eyes, and he broke in again.
"Now," he said, "when you think of it, that's quite likely, after all. There's three or four big bluffs a man could hide in, and if he was stuck for a horse he wouldn't care to try the open. If he lay by a while he might fix it up with somebody to bring him one. Of course, he might have got away up the track, but they'd wire on to watch the stations. Didn't you do that, Corporal?"
"We did," Slaney answered.
Murray turned to the others.
"Then, one would allow that Winthrop couldn't have cleared by train. If he'd done that, they'd sure have got him." He paused, and, hearing a beat of hoofs, added thoughtfully, "It looks mighty like he was still in the neighborhood."
Something in Slaney's expression suggested that he shared this opinion; but the drumming of hoofs was growing louder, and a man strolled toward the doorway.
"It's Baxter," he announced.
A few minutes later Baxter came in, flushed and dusty, and helped himself at the soda-water fountain before he turned to the others with a cracker in his hand.
"It's powerful warm, boys, and I've had a ride for nothing," he informed them. "Been over to Lorton's place and he wasn't in."