“Rod, old man,” cried Cutter angrily, “this damned thing has got to stop!  You haven’t a much better friend than I am, I guess, and I’m telling you straight that the whole county is getting sore on you.  They will talk more than ever now, saying that it’s up to you to get results and that you don’t get them.”

“The stick-up was last night?” asked the sheriff coolly.

“Yes,” snapped Cutter.

“You were in San Juan?”

“Yes.”

“Where was Jim Galloway?  Was he in town?”

“No, he wasn’t.  I don’t know where he was.  But I do know where he ought to be. . . .”

“Was that Mexican gent, del Rio, in town?”

Cutter opened his eyes.

“No.  I don’t think so.  You haven’t got anything on him, have you?”

“Only what you told me.  Remember that his first day in San Juan he went to Galloway like a homing pigeon.”

Norton went for his horse, saddled, and rode swiftly to Las Palmas.  In the mining-camp he went immediately to the office of Nate Kemble, the superintendent, whom he found cursing volubly.

“It’s up to you,” were the sharp words of greeting as Kemble wheeled upon the sheriff.  “What the hell do you think you’re for, anyway?  Good Lord, man, if you can’t cut the mustard, why don’t you crawl out and let a man who can wear your star?”

“Easy there, Kemble,” said Norton quietly.  “You can do your raring and pitching after I’m gone.  Tell me about it.  What time did it happen?”

“It was hardly dark.”

“How many men jumped you?”

“Just one.  But . . .”

“Just one, eh?” He pondered the information.  “That isn’t the usual brand of Galloway work, is it?  Get a good slant at him?”

“At his clothes,” growled Kemble, slamming himself down dejectedly in his chair.  “His face was hid, of course.”

“Ever see a Mexican named del Rio?”

Like Cutter before him, Kemble started.

“Don’t ask me what I mean,” Norton cut him short.  “Del Rio is a pretty big man for a Mexican; was this highwayman about his size?”

Kemble hesitated.

“It’s hard to say just how big a man is when he comes in on you like that,” he said at last.  “At a guess I’d say that the man who stuck me up was a little taller than del Rio.  But I wouldn’t swear to it.”

“It might have been del Rio himself, then?” Norton insisted.

“Yes.  Or it might have been the Devil’s grandmother.  I don’t . . .”

“See anything of del Rio the last few days?”

“Saw him yesterday.  He was in camp.  Was talking mines.”

“See anything of Galloway hereabouts of late?”

“No.  Haven’t seen him for a month or two.”

Norton asked a few other questions, kept his own thoughts to himself, and rode away.  Less than a mile from the camp he met Jim Galloway riding a sweat-wet horse.  The two men reined in sharply, each man’s eyes matching the other’s for hardness.  Galloway’s face was red, the fiery red of anger.