“’That’s a great bluff you’ve made about being on my trail.  Keep it up.  It’ll fool everybody for a while.  They’ll think, maybe, that what you did for L.H. was because he was your personal friend.  They won’t suspect that you’re now one of us.  Adios,
          
                                            “‘J.S.’”

Silent waited for the effect of this missive to show in Morris’s face.

“Supposin’ they was to read a letter like that, Gus.  D’you think maybe it’d sort of peeve them?”

“He’d be outlawed inside of two days!”

“Right.  Here’s the letter.  An’ you’re goin’ to see that it’s delivered in Elkhead, Morris.”

The sheriff looked sombrely on the little square of white.

“I sort of think,” he said at last, “that this here’s the death warrant for Whistlin’ Dan Barry.”

“So do I,” grinned Silent, considerably thirsty for action.  “That’s your chance to make one of your rarin’, tarin’ speeches.  Then you hop into the telegraph office an’ send a wire to the Governor askin’ that a price be put on the head of the bloodthirsty desperado, Dan Barry, commonly known as Whistlin’ Dan.”

“It’s like something out of a book,” said the sheriff slowly.  “It’s like some damned horror story.”

“The minute you get the reply to that telegram swear in forty deputies and announce that they’s a price on Barry’s head.  So long, Gus.  This little play’ll make the boys figger you’re the most efficient sheriff that never pulled a gun.”

He turned his horse, laughing loudly, and the sheriff, with that laughter in his ears, rode back towards his hotel with a downward head.

* * * * *

All day at the Daniels’s house the fever grew perceptibly, and that night the family held a long consultation.

“They’s got to be somethin’ done,” said Buck.  “I’m goin’ to ride into town tomorrow an’ get ahold of Doc Geary.”

“There ain’t no use of gettin’ that fraud Geary,” said Mrs. Daniels scornfully.  “I think that if the boy c’n be saved I c’n do it as well as that doctor.  But there ain’t no doctor c’n help him.  The trouble with Dan ain’t his wound—­it’s his mind that’s keepin’ him low.”

“His mind?” queried old Sam.

“Listen to him now.  What’s all that talkin’ about Delilah?”

“If it ain’t Delilah it’s Kate,” said Buck.  “Always one of the two he’s talkin’ about.  An’ when he talks of them his fever gets worse.  Who’s Delilah, an’ who’s Kate?”

“They’s one an’ the same person,” said Mrs. Daniels.  “It do beat all how blind men are!”

“Are we now?” said her husband with some heat.  “An’ what good would it do even if we knowed that they was the same?”

“Because if we could locate the girl they’s a big chance she’d bring him back to reason.  She’d make his brain quiet, an’ then his body’ll take care of itself, savvy?”