"Maybe you will meet Sadie some day," said Bud, taking the case.
"Maybe," Jeff replied, with an indifference which made the boy stare. Jeff was gazing across the foothills with a queer steely glint in his blue eyes. Bud ran into the house.
Instantly, Jeff was alert. He pulled a tattered handbill from his pocket, smoothed it out, and read it with darkening brows. The bill offered a handsome reward for any information which would lead to the arrest of one Sillett, a defaulting assistant-cashier of a Santa Barbara bank. Sillett and his daughter had disappeared in a springboard, drawn by a buckskin horse, and were supposed to have travelled south, in the hope of crossing the border into Mexico. At the head of the bill was a rough woodcut of Sillett. Jeff crumpled up the sheet of paper, and stuffed it into his pocket.
"It's him--sure 'nough," he growled. Then he gasped suddenly, "Jee- roosalem! Bud is a rosebud!"
He smiled, frowned, and tugged at his moustache as Bud appeared with some more hot water. Jeff blushed.
"You're real kind, but I hate to give ye all this trouble."
Bud, after bathing the swollen leg, glanced up sharply.
"You're as red as the king of hearts. You ain't going to have a fever?"
"I do feel kind o' feverish," Jeff admitted.
Bud lightly touched his forehead.