Upon the heels of this affair, however, came another which was destined to bring Roderick Norton to a crisis in his life. Word reached him at Las Flores that a lone prospector in the Red Hills had been robbed of a baking-powder tin of dust and that the prospector, recovering from the blows which had been rained on his head, had identified one of his two assailants. That one was Vidal Nuñez; circumstances hinted that the other well might be Kid Rickard.
Norton promptly instructed Tom Cutter to find out what he could of Rickard's movements upon the day of the robbery, and himself set out to bring in Vidal Nuñez, taking a grim joy in his task when he remembered how Nuñez had been the man who, with a glance, had cautioned Antone to hold his tongue after the shooting of Bisbee at the Casa Blanca.
"Here's a man Jim Galloway won't thank me for rounding up," he told himself. "And we are going to see if his arm is long enough to keep Nuñez out of the penitentiary."
He went to San Juan, learned that nothing had been seen of the Mexican there, set the machinery of the man hunt in full swing, doubled back through the settlements to the eastward, and for two weeks got nothing but disappointment for his efforts. Nuñez had disappeared and none who cared to tell knew where. But Norton kept on doggedly; confident that the man had not had the opportunity to get out of the country, he was equally confident that, soon or late, he would get him. Then came the second meeting with Jim Galloway.
[Illustration: Then came the second meeting with Jim Galloway.]
The two men rode into each other's view on the lonely trail half-way between San Juan and Tecolote, which is to say where the little, barren hills break the monotony of the desert lands some eight or ten miles to the eastward of San Juan. It was late afternoon, and Galloway, riding back toward town, had the sun in his eyes so that he could not have known as soon as did Norton whom he was encountering. But Galloway was not the man to ride anywhere that he was not ready for whatever man he might meet; Norton's eyes, as the two drew nearer on the blistering trail, marked the way Galloway's right hand rested loosely on the cantle of his saddle and very near Galloway's right hip.
Norton, merely eying him sharply, was for passing on without a word or a nod. The other, however, jerked in his horse, clearly of a mind for parley.
"Well?" demanded Norton.