"You're goin' down about this Webb murder?"
"Yes. I'm goin' to work out some plans. It will take some strategy to land Clanton. He's lived out in the hills for years and he knows every foot of cover in the country."
Goodheart assented. To go blindly out into the mesquite after the young outlaw would have been as futile as to reach a hand toward the stars with the hope of plucking a gold-piece from the air.
"Watch the men he trains with. Keep an eye on the Elephant Corral an' check up on him when he rides in to Los Portales. Spot the tendejon at Point o' Rocks where he has a hang-out. Unless he has left the country he'll show up one of these days."
"That's what I think, Jack, an' I'm confident he hasn't gone. He has a reason for stayin' here."
Goodheart could have put a name to the reason. It was a fair enough reason to have held either him or the sheriff under the same circumstances.
"How about a reward? He trains with a crowd I'd hate to trust farther than I could throw a bull by the tail. Some of 'em would sell their own mothers for gold."
"I'll get in touch with Webb's family an' see if they won't offer a big reward for information leading to the arrest of the murderer."
Within the week every crossroads store in the county had tacked to it a placard offering a reward of five thousand dollars for the man who had killed Homer Webb.
No applications for it came in at first.