He smiled at her vehement defense of the girl. “I don’t think we will have occasion to go that far in the matter, Mother Liggs,” he said reassuringly. “As I was driving in from the ranch it struck me that, confronted with what evidence we have and more that we’ll get, showing that Miss Huntington presumably aided him, Billy Gee will confess—make a clean breast of everything, rather than have her incriminated. Any man would, out of a sense of gratitude, if for no other reason.” He paused and added slowly: “Personally, from everything you’ve told me about her I don’t believe a young woman of Miss Huntington’s standing would stoop to such a thing as keeping stolen money—supposing, of course, that Billy Gee turned it over to her. Isn’t that so?”
Mrs. Liggs did not reply. She studied him curiously for a few seconds, then she said gravely:
“You haven’t seen the bulletin board this afternoon, have you? Well, Billy Gee escaped from Sheriff Warburton and—and got away, Lex. If you’ll stay to supper I’ll tell you all about it. And I’ve got—what do you think, deary? Pumpkin pie! Only it’s made out of canned pumpkin.” Laughing, she took both his hands in hers and drew him into the kitchen.
A hundred miles southwest of Geerusalem, where the Mohave Desert grudgingly recedes and the great arable belt, rich in orange and lemon groves, orchard and vineyard, follows the coast line unswervingly, north and south, a dozen posses were scouring the country for one man.
Four hours before, Billy Gee had turned on Sheriff Warburton in the lavatory of the smoking car and struck him down with the heavy “bottle-cuffs” that shackled his hands. He had taken the key from the unconscious official’s pocket, unlocked the manacles, slipped them on Warburton, and gagged him so that he could not cry out. Then he had leaped through the lavatory window, while the train was straining on an upgrade, out of the desert.
At the next station, a brakeman had discovered the sheriff lying helpless on the floor. The train was stopped, the wires tapped, and the alarm broadcasted around for hundreds of miles.
Sheriff Warburton, overwhelmed with humiliation, raging impotently, mustered a posse and began combing the neighborhood where his prisoner had broken for freedom. Other posses were organized. A dragnet, twenty-five miles in diameter, started closing in. Hour after fruitless hour passed. On the evening of the same day that he had left Geerusalem with the notorious bandit in custody, Sheriff Warburton, baffled, discomfited, offered one thousand dollars for the man’s capture, dead or alive.
At ten o’clock that night, when it seemed certain that Billy Gee had dropped from sight, Warburton wrapped up his gold-filled star of authority, together with his credentials and a letter, resigning as sheriff of San Buenaventura County. These he mailed to the chairman of the board of supervisors, but he did not abandon his hunt for Billy Gee. On the contrary, he prosecuted that hunt with a persistence bordering on frenzy, spending days and nights in the saddle, sleeping and eating only when exhaustion threatened to put him out of the running, and he registered a violent oath against the outlaw, if they ever should meet again.
Two weeks later the newspapers carried a story about the finding of a dead man in a lonely desert cañon, some distance from the little town of Burbank. Authorities differed as to the length of time the man had been dead. Identification proving quite impossible, it was, nevertheless, decided that the remains were those of Billy Gee. Ex-Sheriff Warburton alone would not believe it. He continued his relentless, indefatigable search.