The old intimacy between Billie and Jim had long since waned.  They were traveling different roads these days.  But though they were no longer chums their friendship endured.  When they met, a warm affection lit the eyes of both.  It had survived the tug of diverse interests, the intervention of long separations, the conflict born of the love of women.  Would it stand without breaking this new test of its strength?

With a little nod to Goodheart the sheriff retired from the camp-fire.  His deputy joined him presently on a hillside overlooking the creek.

“I’m goin’ back to Live-Oaks to-night, Jack,” announced Prince.  “You’d better stay here a few days an’ hunt through these gulches.  Since that rain yesterday there’s not one chance in fifty of runnin’ down the rustlers, but you might happen to stumble on the place where they’ve got the cattle cached.”

“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.

“Wait,” said Goodheart, smiling.  “More than one yellow dog has licked its jaws hungrily before that poster.  Some dark night the yellowest one will sneak in here to see you.”

On the main street of Los Portales one evening Billie met Pauline Roubideau.  She came at him with a direct frontal attack.

“I’ve had a letter from Jim Clanton.”

The sheriff did not ask her where it was post-marked.  He did not want any information from Polly as to the whereabouts of her friend.

“You’re one ahead of me then.  I haven’t,” answered Prince.