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 take, overhaul, seize, or lay hands upon the despoiler?’

“‘He escaped,’ says Ogden. ‘And I was just reading in a paper to-day that the officers have tracked him down into this part of the country. It seems the bills the robber got were all the first issue of currency to the Second National Bank of Espinosa City. And so they’ve followed the trail where they’ve been spent, and it leads this way.’

“Ogden pours out some more Bourbon, and shoves me the bottle.

“‘I imagine,’ says I, after ingurgitating another modicum of the royal boose, ‘that it wouldn’t be at all a disingenuous idea for a train robber to run down into this part of the country to hide for a spell. A sheep-ranch, now,’ says I, ‘would be the finest kind of a place. Who’d ever expect to find such a desperate character among these song-birds and muttons and wild flowers? And, by the way,’ says I, kind of looking H. Ogden over, ‘was there any description mentioned of this single-handed terror? Was his lineaments or height and thickness or teeth fillings or style of habiliments set forth in print?’

“‘Why, no,’ says Ogden; ‘they say nobody Rh