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 Land. He pulled his long mustache, gloom in his eye over the prospect of re-election, speaking his mind freely on this sowing of dead men along the raiders' trail.

In his opinion it was due to a quarrel among the thieves. That cow jerry's hand was the one scattering this woeful sowing of death, the sheriff said. He had been told, by those who had seen him in action, that he was quicker than any man's eye when it came to slinging out his gun. He had been weeding out the undesirables from his gang, likely with the ultimate purpose of killing them all, leaving no division of the stolen money necessary. It had been done before in the sheriff's time; it was a well-known Texas trick.

Louise Gardner heard all these reports and theories, for the daily paper was supporting the sheriff and picked up every word that he broadcast in the square. Her own conviction of Laylander's innocence had become settled and serene. She had arrived at a theory in the case, which she kept to herself. She did not even repose her confidence in Maud Kelly, with whom she was serving her few days of apprenticeship in the county treasurer's office.

Louise knew that the sheriff's uncharitable hypothesis was true in part. Tom Laylander's hand was the one, indeed, that was dotting the fleeing bandits' trail with dead men.