“He rides around with the judge a hull lot,” Toothpick explained further. “Why for did yuh ask?”
“Knew a gent what looks like him once,” Dutchy muttered, with his eyes still watching Anderson, “twenty years ago.”
“Then it can’t be him.”
“Might have been his father,” Dutchy grunted.
They walked toward the others and arrived in time to hear the judge ask them:
“Who do you suppose did this?”
There was a moment of silence which was broken by Bill Anderson.
“I was over in Arizona last week, and the papers were talking about some renegade Apache who were raiding along the border. Maybe they have worked up this way,” he suggested.
“Maybe so,” the sheriff said doubtfully.
Silent Moore, the sheriff’s deputy, carefully examined the mutilated man for a moment; then, for the first time since his arrival, he opened his lips.
“I’ve fit the Apache – ’tain’t their work,” he said.
“Nonsense, man, it’s impossible to tell,” Bill Anderson exclaimed, and the others, with the exception of Toothpick and Dutchy, were inclined to agree with him.
“Greasers did that work – Apaches would have tracked down the man out there and killed him, and they would have used a club on the woman,” the deputy insisted stubbornly.
“Sure yuh’re right,” Sam Hogg cried with an oath. “White men or devils started in to make it look like Injuns – got scared before they finished and run for it.”
“The Lava Gang!” Toothpick cried excitedly. “Judge, where’s ‘Snippets’ and Mary?”
The judge’s face went white as he whispered: “You – you mean that letter from them?”
“Yeah, but where are the girls?” Toothpick asked again.
“They’re safe. I took them over to visit Sam Hogg’s wife at the Frying Pan Ranch this evening. Bill and I were coming back when we saw the fire.”
Toothpick relaxed and uttered a sigh of relief. The Lava Gang sometimes stole girls for ransom and held them across the border.
“What’s this – what letter?” the sheriff asked sharply.
“You all know that I am to preside at the trial of Pete Cable for murder, which takes place a week from to-day. Last week I received a warning signed by the Lava Gang, saying if I did not see that Cable was acquitted, some terrible thing would happen to me.”
“What did yuh do with the letter?” the sheriff demanded.
The judge shrugged. “I tore it up.”
“You are not going to pay any attention to the letter?” Bill Anderson asked curiously as his eyes searched the judge’s face.
“I intend to see justice done,” the judge replied firmly.
Bill Anderson pursed his lips and whistled soundlessly. The others turned and frowned at him. He smiled apologetically.
“No offense, judge. I was admiring your courage. If, as you seem to think, the Lava Gang did this, I would stay in after dark,” the plump politician said.
“To blazes with the Lava Gang! We’ll have the whole bunch in jail before the trial is finished,” Sam Hogg exploded.
Bill Anderson lit a cigarette, then smiled.
“You have to catch them first.”
“We’ll do it.”
Sam Hogg spoke positively, but somehow his words brought cold comfort to the judge.
Some fifteen miles to the southwest there was a great barren waste of lava rock. The Lava Gang had received their name from the fact that after each raid their trail was lost on the smooth slopes of the lava fields. No one knew a single member of the gang. It was suspected that they had their real headquarters in Cannondale. They were as elusive as ghosts. The thought that a member of the gang might be present at that moment made the judge grow thoughtful.
Sam Hogg growled like an angry terrier.
“If we don’t trail ’em to-morrow, I’ll send for that little hellion, ‘Jim-twin’ Allen. I’m bettin’ he’d trail ’em. I hears he’s better than a bloodhound.”
Bill Anderson laughed.
“He’d probably throw in with the Lava Gang himself.”
“Him? Not any!” Toothpick snorted. “He wouldn’t have no truck with hombres what steal girls. He’ll come a-runnin’ and a-shootin’ if I tells him about it.”
“Fairy tales,” the judge snorted.
“You tell him to come, judge, and watch his smoke,” Toothpick pleaded.
“A judge ask help from an outlaw who is wanted for murder in a dozen States?” Anderson laughed again.
“You gents stop gabbin’ and help me get this hombre in the buckboard,” the sheriff called.
A bed of blankets was made on the floor of the wagon, and the unconscious man was lifted in.
“Mr. Anderson, yuh drive him easy to town,” directed the sheriff. “An’ if he starts talkin’, yuh listen hard, ’cause I got a hunch that hombre will sure tell us a heap more about the Lava Gang than we knows now.”
“I’ll certain listen if he starts talking,” Anderson replied. He climbed into the buckboard and picked up the reins. Dutchy watched the team until it vanished in the night.
“I’d sure like to know where I seen that gent before, an’, if I ain’t seen him, who does he remind me of?” Dutchy muttered to himself.
Silent Moore was sent to town to gather a posse. The judge called Dutchy aside and whispered an order to him. Dutchy was known as a deadly fighter and a man who could be trusted.
“Dutchy, I want you to ride to the Frying Pan Ranch, and I don’t want you to let my daughter or Snippets out of your sight until this is over.”
The grizzled puncher mounted his horse and galloped off. The others remained.
Toward morning Silent Moore returned with the posse, and at the first streak of dawn they took up the trail of the murderers. For a time it led due south toward the Mexican border; then it headed sharply to the west, toward the lava fields. Here the trail was lost.
The lava fields were a maze of smooth slopes, abrupt ridges, and deep depressions. For seventy miles they roughly paralleled the border. And in all that expanse of rock there was no sign of verdure, save only an occasional cactus.
The posse scattered and searched for the trail. The sun blazed down and turned the desolate place into a furnace. The hunters were grim men, not easily turned aside. The sun baked them, they suffered from the lack of water, but they continued to search.
Toward noon, “Ace” Cutts, with five of the judge’s riders from the Bar X Ranch, joined the search. The men dismounted and climbed the jagged slopes. They cut their hands and tore their boots on the knifelike edges of the lava rock.
The sun rose past meridian. The rocks and sand were too hot to touch. All that day the men of the posse continued their search, but found nothing. At last, toward evening, they realized their hunt was in vain. Beaten, baffled, they gathered for the return trip to town.
“Yuh figure Jim Allen could track those devils?” Tom Powers asked of Toothpick.
“Sure could,” the lanky cow-puncher replied.
The sheriff reined in his horse. “Then if yuh know