'Hold yore hosses, Raven, it sticks in my mind that suggestion come from yu,' the deputy protested.
'That so? Well, mebbe yo're right,' Raven admitted easily. 'Yore high-falutin' yarn made it seem likely.'
'Pete's a born romancer,' the marshal said. 'Hear him tell of his past an' yu look for his wings.'
'So it warn't the Greaser?' Raven asked.
'Senor Moraga has not yet settled his little account with me,' Green smiled, adding, 'I've been at the Box B.'
This was not all the truth, but it served, for the marshal saw the visitor's eyes widen. All he said, however, was:
'Andy's drivin' to-day, I hear. Where's he campin' this time?'
'Same place as before, I understand. It's a good beddin' ground an' he reckons there ain't no storms around.'
Raven nodded. 'Weather seems likely to stay put,' he agreed.
When he had gone Pete turned aggressively on his chief. 'Why d'yu tell him where Andy was campin'?' he asked.
'I didn't,' the marshal grinned.
'But--' the deputy began, and then comprehension came to him and he grinned too.
'Awright, Solomon,' the little man said. 'What yu goin' to do now?'
'Put some money in the bank,' Green told him.
Barsay dropped into the nearest chair. 'Savin' coin, the hawg, an' me with a thirst,' he ejaculated in mock horror. 'Wonder which of us he can't trust, me or the Injun?'
To which query he got no reply, the marshal being already on the way to execute his financial errand. Arrived outside the bank he hung about until he saw the clerk emerge and then entered. As he had hoped, Potter was alone. He took the money Green tendered and wrote out a receipt.
'Ain't got on the track of that outlaw yet, I suppose?' he remarked, and when his customer admitted that his supposition was correct, he added, 'I was saying to Raven yesterday that you hadn't much to go on, and that probably he's hundreds of miles away by now.'
'Raven is a hard man to satisfy,' the marshal stated.
'You are right,' the banker agreed harshly. 'He's--' he paused suddenly, and then, in an altered tone, went on, 'a good customer, and I ought not to be discussing him, but I know you won't chatter, marshal.'
Having assured him on that point, Green came away, wondering. A comparison of the receipt with the mysterious note showed a similarity in the writing; they might have been done by the same person, but why, Green asked himself, should the banker help Moraga? For the rest, all he had discovered was that Potter disliked but feared Raven, an attitude common to many of the citizens of Lawless. Additional proof of this was afforded that same evening. The marshal was nearing the bank when he heard Seth's voice, and, curious as to his business there so late, slipped round the corner of the building and waited. In a moment the door opened and he heard the banker say, in. a tone of abject humility:
'I'll do as you wish, sir.'
'Yu'd better,' the saloon-keeper said contemptuously, and went up the street.
From his door the banker watched until the other was out of hearing and then his pent-up bitterness burst its bonds:
'And may God damn your rotten soul,' he hissed, and shook his fist at the retreating figure.
Not until the door slammed did the marshal resume his way. One thing the incident told him--Potter was in The Vulture's power, and might therefore have been compelled to write the decoy message.
'Odd number that,' he ruminated. 'The banker is a bet I mustn't overlook.'
* * *
A week slid by and the marshal was no nearer the solution of the problem he had set himself to solve. Though there had been no further activity on the part of Sudden the Second, Green did not agree with Potter's suggestion that the outlaw had departed for fresh pastures; the black horse was still in its hiding-place. In the meanwhile, he had plenty to occupy his mind. Two attempts had been made on his life, and though he believed that the saloon-keeper had something to do with them, he had no proof. Since his escape from death in the desert, the autocrat of Lawless had treated him with jovial friendliness, a circumstance which aroused suspicion in the object of it. So marked indeed was the change that Pete was moved to caustic comment.
'If yu was a turkey I'd say he was fattenin' yu up for the killin',' the deputy said. 'Looks like Andy has made it this time.'
The marshal nodded. 'Jevons was at the Red Ace last night,' he said. 'An' his boss didn't seem none pleased 'bout somethin'.'
Green's guess was a good one. The 88 foreman had come on an unpleasant errand--the admission of his own failure, and that this was due to wrong information supplied by his employer, though it would have excused him with most men, did not do so with Raven.
'Well, how many d'yu get?' was his opening question, as the foreman entered the private room.
'Not a hoof,' Jevons replied. 'Whoever told yu they aimed to bed down in The Pocket got it wrong.'
The half-breed gritted out an oath as he remembered where he got the information. Always, by accident or design,, the marshal hampered him.
'Green again, blast him,' he muttered. 'He's allus in the way.'
'Put him outa business,' the foreman suggested callously.
'Tell me how,' snapped the other. 'Yu can't--he's got yu all buffaloed.'
Jevons was silent for a while, and when he did speak his remark seemed to be irrelevant: ' 'Split' Adam is at the 88,' he said.
Raven reflected. 'Think he'd tackle it?' he asked.
' 'Split' is mighty near sellin' his saddle,' Jevons told him. 'Five hundred dollars would listen good to him about now.'
Since a saddle is the last thing a Western rider parts with the saloon-keeper knew that Adam must be at desperation point.
'Send him in,' he said shortly.
Hard-looking strangers attracted little attention in Lawless, unless they invited it by their actions, and this Mister Adam was careful to avoid. In fact, he arrived after dark, pushed his bronc furtively into the Red Ace corral, himself into that place of entertainment by the side door, and so into the owner's private sanctum. Raven nodded towards a chair, shoved forward a box of cigars, and silently studied his visitor. Adam had small pretensions to beauty. On the wrong side of forty, he was thin--even weedy--in build. He had a long, narrow face, emphasized by a ginger goatee beard and a stringy, drooping moustache, and a sneer appeared to be his natural expression. His small eyes, cold, expressionless, were like polished stone. Two guns, the holsters tied down, hung low on his lips. He endured the other man's scrutiny for a moment or two, and then, in a harsh, rasping voice, he said:
'Jevons allowed vu wanted to see me. Well, yu done it, an' if that's all I'll be on my way.'
The truculent, bullying tone did not appear to affect Raven. 'How many men have yu killed, Mister Adam?' he asked. 'There's a fella in this town we could git along without, but he won't take a hint.'
The sneering question was plain in the other's eyes.
'Yeah. Natural for yu to think that, Mister Adam,' Raven went on, 'but I'm not a gun-fighter--don't even tote one. My weapons are brains and--dollars.'
The killer smiled wolfishly. 'How many--dollars?' he asked.
'Five hundred,' Raven replied. 'The fella happens to be the marshal too, so if he--left us--there'd be a vacancy.'
'I'll go yu,' Adam said. 'I can use that mazuma, an' I've allus thought a star would look about right on me.'
'Yu gotta earn 'em first,' the other warned. 'The chap ain't no pilgrim, an' yu'll need to play yore cards close. He calls hisself Green, but yu can risk a stack it don't describe him.'
'I ain't exactly a beginner my own self,' the gunman replied. 'Nothin' will happen to-night--don't want it to look like I come in a-purpose--but I'll be takin' his measure. O' course, yu won't know me from--Adam.'
He laughed hoarsely at his little joke, nodded to his host, and departed, again using the side door. Some time later he oozed into the Red Ace, posted himself at the bar, and called for the customary drink. Beyond a casual
