While this scene was being enacted, Danny and O’Hara, accompanied by Maitland, had conducted a search of Brown’s automobile. Nothing was found in the front part of the machine, but under the tonneau seat a heavy wooden chest was revealed, locked and bolted on three sides. After they had transferred this to Mr. Southwick’s car, they returned to the group by the bungalow.
The eastern sky was now shot with faint streaks of light, which proclaimed the coming of dawn. Now, for the first time, it would be possible to make a thorough search of the premises.
As O’Hara came up, Brown glared at him as though seeing him for the first time since the arrival of the raiding party.
“So you’re the informer, are you?” he said, wrathfully. “A fine patriot you are! Your friends must be pretty bad off to get help from criminals.”
O’Hara was about to reply, when Mr. Southwick turned to the German, and said, acidly:
“You’ll have plenty of opportunity to talk later, Brown. Just now, what we want from you is information. I have evidence that your wife was here last night. Where is she now? Speak the truth. Where is she?”
A sneer passed over the cold face of the man.
“If it will do you any good to know,” he said, “she is in Mexico by this time. Perhaps you’d like to catch her, too, eh? Yes, and maybe the Mexicans will help you. Suppose you try?”
Doubtless the man spoke the truth.
The stately woman whose beauty had so impressed O’Hara on his arrival at the ranch, was nowhere to be found. By this time the bungalow and its adjacent buildings had already been searched by the busy men.