It was this posse, headed by the sheriff of Blanco, that Dan Anderson and the Littlest Girl saw when they reached a point midway between Uncle Jim Brothers’s hotel and the post-office.  The little group of riders, dusty and travel-stained, had come at a steady trot down the street.  Stillson, tall, grim-featured, and bronzed, looked neither to the right nor to the left.  He stopped, and ordered his men to dismount and eat.  They swung out of their saddles without a word, loosening the cinches to breathe their horses.  The men of Heart’s Desire began to gather around them.

“What’s up, Ben?” asked McKinney, the one most apt to be concerned; for cow men had borne the brunt of outlawry in that land for more than a generation.  “Has Chacon come across from Arizona, or has the Kid broke out again?”

The sheriff looked at him gravely.  “The Kid’s out,” said he.  “We had him and two others at Seven Rivers, but he broke out four days ago.  He killed the jailer and a couple of Mexicans farther up the river.  There’s four in his bunch now, and we’ve trailed them this far.  They’re likely headed for Sumner.  We dropped in here, across the Patos, to get a couple of men or so.  How are you fixed here?”

“Wait till I get a Winchester,” said McKinney, briefly, and started down the street.

“Whiteman,” Doc Tomlinson volunteered, “you ’tend to my drug store while I’m away, and if anybody wants any drugs, you go get ’em.”

“You all hold on a minute,” said Curly, hurrying forward, “while I run over home and git saddled up.”  He did not see the Littlest Girl approaching, but the sheriff did.

“Never mind, Curly,” said the sheriff, quietly, pointing to her.  “I want one more man, a single man.”

“You, Curly!” interrupted his spouse, “you stay right where you are.  You get some one else, Mr. Stillson.  He’s got a family, and besides, he’s such a fool.”

Curly flushed.  “Was it my fault I got married?” he began hotly.  “And them twins, was they mine, real?  Now look here—­” But the sheriff shook his head.  He looked at Dan Anderson inquiringly.

“Certainly I’ll go,” said he.  “Wait till I get fixed.”

“That’s as many as I’ll need,” said Stillson.  “Hurry up, all of you.”

Dan Anderson hastened across the arroyo to his house, first asking Curly to get him a horse.  Curly departed to his own home with the Littlest Girl; so that Constance presently got fuller news of the arrival of the sheriff’s party, and learned also that Dan Anderson was to join them.

“But, Curly,” cried Constance, “isn’t it dangerous?  Won’t some one get hurt?” She winced.  The steady flame of her own brave heart flickered at this new terror.

“Kin savvy?” grinned Curly.  “The Kid’s gang shore’ll fight.  A good many fellers has got hurt goin’ after him.  But what you goin’ to do?  Let ’em steal all the cows they want, and kill everybody they feel like?”