Meanwhile, Wade and Santry were searching for the chief cause of all their trouble, Race Moran. They were not surprised to find his office vacant, but as the night wore on and the saffron hues of dawn appeared in the sky, and still he was not found, they became anxious. Half of the gratification of their efforts would be gone, unless the agent was made to pay the penalty of his crimes. Wade inquired of the men he met, and they too had seen nothing of the wily agent. The search carried them to the further end of the town without result, when Wade turned to Santry.
"Hunt up Lem and see if he knows anything," he said. "I'll meet you in front of the hotel. I'm going to ride out and see if I can dig up any news on the edge of town. Moran may have made a get-away."
With a nod, Santry whirled his horse and dashed away, and Wade rode forward toward an approaching resident, evidently of faint heart, who meant, so it seemed, to be in for the "cakes" even though he had missed the "roast." A little contemptuously, the ranchman put his question.
"Yes, I seen him; leastwise, I think so," the man answered. "He went past my house when the shootin' first started. How are the boys makin' out?"
"Which way did he go?" the cattleman demanded, ignoring the other's question. The resident pointed in the direction taken by Moran. "Are you sure?"
"If it was him, I am, and I think it was."
Wade rode slowly forward in the indicated direction, puzzled somewhat, for it led away from Sheridan, which should have been the agent's logical objective point. But a few moments' consideration of the situation made him think that the route was probably chosen for strategic reasons. Very likely Moran had found his escape at the other end of the town blocked, and he meant to work to some distant point along the railroad. Wade drew rein, with the idea of bringing his friends also to the pursuit, but from what his informant had told him Moran already had a long start and there was no time to waste in summoning assistance. Besides, if it were still possible to overtake the quarry, the ranchman preferred to settle his difference with him, face to face, and alone.
He urged his horse into a lope, and a little beyond the town dismounted to pick up the trail of the fugitive, if it could be found. Thanks to a recent shower, the ground was still soft, and the cattleman soon picked up the trail of a shod horse, leading away from the road and out upon the turf. By the growing light, he was able to follow this at a fairly rapid pace, and as he pressed on the reflection came to him that if the agent continued as he was now headed, he could hope to come out eventually upon the Burlington Railroad, a full seventy miles from Sheridan. The pursuit was likely to be a long one, in this event, and Wade was regretting that he had not left some word to explain his absence, when he suddenly became aware of the fact that he had lost the trail.