Vaniman made no suggestions.  Having cut the knot of his own entanglement where these men were concerned, he felt no spirit of alacrity about inviting them farther into his personal affairs; he realized that he had merely shifted the course of their dogged pursuit of that money.  In spite of his feelings toward Britt, he was dreading what might come from the disclosures he had just made.  He had reason to distrust the tactics such men might employ.  His relief arising from the show-down was tinged with regret; he was still sorry for the innocent losers in Egypt.  To employ two escaped convicts and a recreant prison guard in his efforts to prevail on Britt and secure the rights due an innocent man promised to involve him more wretchedly.

“Vaniman, suppose you take command and give off your orders,” said the short man.

“I haven’t any sensible plans.  I admit that.  I have been so pestered and wrought up by the everlasting bullyragging about the devilish money that I haven’t had a chance to figure out a way of getting at the man who has ruined me,” Vaniman complained.  He strode to and fro, snapping his fingers, revealing his sense of helplessness.

“Suppose we sleep on the thing—­the whole four of us,” suggested the short man.  “I said sleep, please note!  This general show-down has cleared the air up here a whole lot, I’ll say!  And Wagg has steered away the dicks!  They won’t be strolling in, and till we have settled on a plan I’m sure nobody will feel like strolling out.  The night watch is disbanded.”

He marched off toward the camp.  The others trailed on behind him.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE STIR OF THE YEAST

Mr. Delmont Bangs was naturally of an observant nature.  While he was in Egypt he was keeping his eyes particularly wide open.  He was looking for two men wanted by the state.  Mr. Bangs was the deputy warden who had gone up to the summit of Devilbrow in order to view the landscape o’er and pass the word to Mr. Wagg.  Mr. Bangs rode along every highway and byway, day after day, not missing a trick.  He was not especially sanguine in regard to locating the missing convicts in that section, but he was obeying the warden’s orders; after a day or so he was also obeying an impulse to satisfy his curiosity in lines quite apart from his official quest.

He spent his nights at Files’s tavern and grabbed his meals wherever he happened to be.

But after a time he found that housewives were unwilling to give him anything to eat.  He was sure that they had not soured on him because he was a state catchpole.  When he first arrived in town and gave out the news of his mission and issued a general call for tips he was welcomed heartily by everybody; the women, especially, hoped that he would find the villains and put them where they could not threaten unprotected females.  Mr. Bangs had not been able to spend his money for food at farmhouses; the women would not accept any pay, and gave him their best.