The Captain stationed a man at each of the three towns. He sent two on a scouting-trip through No Man's Land, and two more to search Palo Duro Cañon. He watched the stages as they went and came, questioned mule-skinners with freight outfits, kept an eye on tendejóns and feed-corrals. And at the end of three weeks he had no results whatever to show, except a sarcastic note from Pete Dinsmore complimenting him on his force of Rangers.
The Captain was furious, but not a whit discouraged.
"Dog it, we'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," he told Lieutenant Hawley, his second in command.
To them came Jack Roberts with a proposition. "I've found out that Homer Dinsmore has a girl in Tascosa. She's a Mexican. I know about her through Tony Alviro. It seems she's a cousin of Bonita, the girl Tony is going to marry. About once a week Dinsmore rides into town at night, ties his horse in the brush back of her house, and goes in to see her. If you say so, Chief, I'll make it my business to be there when he comes."
"Need any help, do you reckon?"
"No. I'll have to hide out in the mesquite. One man will be better on that job than two."
"All right, son. You know yore job. Get him."
That was all the warrant Jack wanted or needed. He returned to Tascosa and made his preparations.
Every night after dark he slipped out of town by the north road till he was on the open prairie, then swung round in a semicircle skirting the lights of the settlement. He had arranged a blind in the brush from which he could see the back of the Menendez "soddy." Occasionally he comforted himself with a cautiously smoked cigarette, but mostly he lay patiently watching the trap that was to lure his prey. At one o'clock each morning he rose, returned on his beat, went to bed, and fell instantly asleep.
On the fifth night there was a variation of the programme.
It was between nine and ten o'clock that Jack heard the hoot of an owl. He sat up instantly, eyes and ears keyed for action.
The back door of the sod-house opened, and through the night stillness floated the faint strumming of a guitar. Jack did not doubt that it was the answering signal to show that all was safe.
A man crept forward from the mesquite and disappeared inside the house.
Through the brush the Ranger snaked his way to the point from which the hooting of the owl had come. A bronco was tethered to a bush. An examination showed that the horse had been ridden far, but not too fast.