While no larger than Dutch Springs, this mining supply town had the appearance of being far busier and more prosperous.
Men crowded the streets and freight rigs and teams were moving about.
Although they were forced to maintain a sharper watch, this activity enabled them to ride in and rack their broncs without any particular attention being paid them.

"Gyp'll be holdin' forth in some bar if he's here at all", Cobb declared, glancing along the street as they stretched their legs.

There were no less than six or seven saloons in Ganado, not counting the lower class dives, all vying for the trade of celebrating miners and teamsters.
Pat only nodded.
"Take one side of the street, and I'll take the other", he proposed.
"If you spot Carmer give a yell before you move in".

Cobb's assent was tight.
"You do the same.
It's all I ask, Stevens".

Separating, they took different sides of the main drag and systematically combed the bars.
Russ visited two places without result and his blood pressure was down to zero.
Suddenly it seemed to him insane that they might hope to locate Gyp Carmer so casually, even were he to prove the thief.
He tramped out of the Miners Rest with his hopes plummeting, and headed doggedly for the Palace Saloon, the last place of any consequence on this side of the street.

The Palace was an elaborate establishment, built practically on stilts in front, with long flights of wooden steps running up to the porch.
Behind its ornate facade the notorious dive clung like a bird's nest to the rocky ribs of the canyonside.
Russ ran up the steps quickly to the plank porch.
The front windows of the place were long and narrow, reaching nearly to the floor and affording an unusually good view of the interior.
Heading for the batwings, Cobb glanced perfunctorily through the nearest window, and suddenly dodged aside.
Nerves tight as a bowstring, he paused to gather his wits.

Against all expectation, Carmer was inside, clearly enjoying himself to the hilt and already so tipsy that it seemed unlikely he was bothering to note anything or anyone about him.
Fierce anger surged through Russ.
He fought down the impulse to rush in and collar the vicious puncher on the spot.

Reaching the porch rail beyond view of the bar windows, he feverishly scanned the busy street below.
Stevens was nowhere in sight.
Muffling an exclamation, Russ sprang to the nearest steps and ran down.
As luck had it, he had not gone twenty feet in the street before Pat appeared.

"What luck, Cobb"?
He said swiftly.

Russ pointed upward.
"He's there", he got out tersely, curbing his rising excitement.
Hitching his cartridge belt around, Pat glanced upward briefly at the Palace and started that way with Cobb at his side.

Climbing the steps steadily, they reached the top and headed for the door.
Pat pushed through first.
Forced behind him momentarily, Russ followed at once and halted two steps inside.
His eyes widened.
While five minutes ago the place had presented a scene of easy revelry, with Gyp Carmer a prominent figure, it was now as somnolent and dull as the day before payday.
Carmer himself was nowhere to be seen.

A man knocked the roulette ball about idly in its track, and another dozed at one of the card tables.
Two men murmured with their heads together at the end of the bar, while the sleek-headed bartender absently polished a glass.
Looking the setup over, Stevens started coolly for the rear of the place.

"Where yuh goin'"?

It was the barkeep.
Halting, Pat turned to survey him deliberately.
He did not reply, going on toward the back.
Less assured than the tall, wide-shouldered man in the lead, Cobb followed alertly, a hand on his gun butt.
The bartender measured this situation with heavy eyes and decided he wanted no part of it.
He said no more.

A hall opened in back of the bar, running toward an ell.
Pat moved into it.
Small rooms, probably for cards, opened off on either side.
All the doors were open at this hour except one, and it was toward this that Stevens made his way with Russ close at his shoulder.

The door was locked.
A single kick made it spring open, shuddering.
Pat saw Gyp Carmer staggering forward, a half-filled bottle upraised as if to strike.
Russ sprang through to bat it nimbly aside.
With a bellow Carmer lunged at him.
But he was more than half-drunk, and his faculties were dulled.
Cobb unleashed a single powerful jab that sent Gyp reeling wildly and crashing down with a whining groan.
He started to struggle up, heaving desperately.
Russ gave him a brutal thrust that tumbled him over flat on his stomach.
Kneeling, Cobb planted a sturdy knee in the small of his back, holding him pinned.

"Okay, Stevens.
I've drawn his fangs", he snapped.
"Go through his pockets, will you?
If we have to we'll take him apart and see what he's made of"!

Complying methodically, Pat pulled pocket after pocket inside out without finding a thing.
Cobb watched this with hunted eyes, his desperate hope waning by the moment.
Stevens was grunting over the last empty pocket when Russ abruptly rose and lunged toward Carmer's hat, which had tumbled half-a-dozen feet away when he first fell.
Cobb got it.
Straightening up, his eyes ablaze, he held out the battered Stetson.

"Look at this"!

Inside the crown, stuffed behind the stained sweatband, could be seen thin, crumpled wads of currency.
Carmer's ingenious cache for his loot had been found.

"By golly, Stevens!
You were right", Russ exclaimed, tearing the loose bills out of Carmer's hat.
"That is, if we can be sure this is Colcord's money" --

Pat grunted.
"Where else would he get it?
Count what you've got there, Cobb.
We can soon tell".

Russ ran through the bills and named an amount it was highly unlikely any cowpuncher would come by honestly.
Pat nodded.
"It's within a hundred of what Crip had", he declared.
"We know Penny spent some -- and Carmer must have dropped a few dollars getting that load on".

Handing the money over, Russ wiped his hands on his pants-legs as if ridding himself of something unclean.
His glance at Gyp Carmer was disdainful.
"Shall we get out of here"?

Leaving the card room, they moved back through the Palace the way they had come.
Glowering looks met them in the bar, but there was no attempt to halt them.
Pausing in the outside door to glance behind him, Pat looked his unspoken warning and stepped out.
He and Cobb clattered down the high steps to the street.

Neither spoke till they reached their horses.
Pat paused there, looking across at the young fellow.
It'll be a pleasure for you to return this money to Colcord and tell him about it, Russ".
He started to return it.

To his faint surprise Russ held up his hand.
"Not me", he ruled decidedly.
I've had enough.
It was you that tracked it down anyway, Stevens", he pursued strictly.
"I'll shove along home".

"Whatever you say".
Pat swung into the saddle, yet still he delayed, his brows puckered.
"You owe it to Penny to give her a chance to explain that she was defending you, really", he observed mildly.

"Old Crip wasn't", retorted Cobb tartly.
"He'll know when you tell him.
But I want this to sink in awhile.
Then maybe next time he won't be so quick on the trigger".

"Pat had never pretended to give advice in such affairs.
"You're the doctor", he returned with a smile.
"But I still think Penny's an awful nice girl, Russ" --

"You don't have to tell me", flashed Cobb.
Giving the other a dark look, he hauled his bronc around and trotted down off the street.
Pat let him go, following more leisurely.
At the first restaurant he sensibly pulled up to go in for his dinner, and as a consequence did not see Cobb strike the open range at the mouth of the canyon and head straight across the swells for Antler.

The truth was, the puncher was both bewildered and dismayed by his own mixed luck.
"Penny's always glad to see me over there", he mused bleakly.
Yet had he not visited the girl at Saw Buck he would never have been involved in this latest tangle.

Over and above that, however, was his growing suspicion of Chuck Stober's part in recent events.
"Gyp Carmer couldn't have known about Colcord's money unless he was told -- and who else would have told him"?
He asked himself.
"It's the second time War Ax hands made a play for that money.

How much of an accident could that be"?

Nearing home, he jerked to attention at the distant crack of a gun.
In town no one paid much attention to an occasional shot;
but on the range gunfire had a meaning.
Hauling up, Russ listened carefully.
Two minutes later it came again -- a double explosion, followed by a third, sounding more distant.

As near as Cobb could determine the shots came from the direction of the Antler ranch house.
He tightened up in a twinkling.
So far as he knew, only his father could be there.
What did it mean?
Clapping spurs to the bronc he set off at a sharp canter, with growing alarm.

His first glimpse of the ranch house across the brushy swells told him nothing.
Still a quarter-mile away, the fresh clap of guns only served to increase his speed.
Setting a course straight for the house, he was covering ground fast when an angry bee buzzed past close to his face.

When it was followed by a second, whining even closer, Cobb swerved sharply aside into a depression.
He knew now what he was up against.
Whoever was out there hiding in the brushy cover was besieging the Antler house and, having spotted his approach, was determined to drive him off before he could get into the fight.

Cursing himself for having ridden out the last few days without a rifle in his saddle boot, Russ drew his Colt and examined it briefly.
If he wondered whether the attackers would allow him to pull away unmolested, he had his answer a moment later.

"Over this way!
He ain't gone far"!
A harsh cry floated to him across the brush.

A carbine cracked more loudly, and a slug clipped fragments from the brush off at one side.
The would-be assassin had his position figured pretty close.
Dismounting, Russ looked about hastily.
Toward the west this depression led toward a draw.
Leading his pony, he hurried that way, not remounting till he was well below the level of the surrounding range.

Swinging up then, and bending forward over the horn, he urged his mount down the meandering draw.
He had not covered a hundred yards before a gun crashed from somewhere behind.
He had been sighted, and his attacker pumping shot after shot.
A shot or two went wild before Cobb felt something tug at his foot.
A slug had torn half of his stirrup-guard away.
A second twitched his shirtsleeve, and he felt a brief burn on his upper arm.
Another snarled close overhead.

"Jumping Jerusalem!
Let's get out of here"!

At the first shot Russ had hurled his mount to the left toward the side of the winding draw.
The long minute before he reached effective cover seemed endless.
Sweeping a look around, he saw that he was safe for the moment.
He heard cries from behind him, but he could make out no words.

He dashed madly for the next elbow turn in the draw, and made it.
Recklessly hurling the bronc sidewise into an intersecting draw, he plunged forward with undiminished speed.
Gradually the wash climbed upward, forcing him toward open range.
Yet he must chance it.
He clambered out of the dwindling wash, the loose dirt flying behind him, and flashed a look about.