Heyes didn't spend all day pacing and fretting. Knowing the time that Wiseman said it would take a horseman to ride to and from town, he waited about four hours before saddling up two horses and getting carefully packed saddle bags on them. Heyes worried that a sudden rescue might be needed if one or both of his friends came riding back in a hurry. He didn't think there was much chance of it, but any chance at all meant Heyes had to be ready. He stayed as ready as he could for hour after hour, even while he sat under a tree on that very pretty day and read through one of the notebooks he had brought. He was still hoping that this whole thing would be resolved quickly enough for him to get back to New York, take make up exams, and go on to summer classes. So he wasn't about to let all his school subjects go totally out of his mind.
Just after sunset a lone horseman on a tired bay horse loped down the trail from the direction of Lodge Grass. It was Jim. He dismounted stiffly and put his horse in the pen behind the cabin. Heyes came out of the cabin in a hurry. "Jim! You alright? Where's Charlie?"
"I'm f-f-fine, Heyes," Jim was yawning and stumbling with weariness as he walked towards the cabin. "Charlie's f-f-fine, t-t-too, last I s-s-saw. He f-f-figured he'd b-b-better st-st-stay the night in the h-h-hotel. No excuse to c-c-come out here."
"Whoa, boy, what're you doing? I heard you lope up. Your horse is still sweaty! You've got to walk him out before he gets water – just like I taught you on Long Island. Go get him – now! He's heading for the trough!" Heyes wondered how Jim had come to be so careless, after their careful lessons.
"B-B-But I g-g-got news!" Jim said, even as he hurried to get his horse.
"You can tell me while we walk that horse. Wiseman's cooking dinner, so we can't ask him." Heyes took the reins of the horse and walked him slowly around the edge of the field while Jim walked on the far side of the horse and talked.
"Sorry about the h-h-horse! J-J-Just forgot! B-B-But g-g-gosh I'm t-t-tired, and all I've d-d-done is t-t-talk and listen!" yawned Jim.
"That's the tension. Running a job always tired us out, even when we were used to it. Paying attention that hard for hours on end is exhausting. You're new to it, so it's worse. I hope you never have a chance to get used to it!" Heyes chuckled. "Now how about that news?"
Jim grinned, but kind of uneasily. "I went t-t-to the sheriff's office just like you s-s-said, all innocent. No K-K-Kid in the c-c-cage! Just d-d-drunk and d-d-disorderly b-b-bout twice his size."
"That's good news – I think – but go on," Heyes said, trying to keep the tension out of his voice.
"B-B-Both of your p-p-posters up! Fift-t-teen thou. D-D-Dimple, no neck mark. D-D-Dropped b-b-both your names – asked any news on your b-b-both. Sheriff d-d-didn't t-t-turn a hair said, "No." Seemed he'd heard the question b-b-before, b-b-but d-d-didn't worry him. B-B-But the d-d-deputy! He looked t-t-tense – b-b-bit his lip, looked at the sheriff and then away fast– out the window."
Heyes was listening to every syllable and now he looked at least as tense as the deputy as he asked, "Did you ask more about us?"
"D-D-Didn't d-d-dare," Jim looked anxiously into Heyes' eyes – and saw relief there.
Heyes flashed a quick grin, "Good man! They wouldn't have told you anything but lies, and the question would've tipped them that you have a special interest. Did you ask about other posters?"
"Of course! B-B-Before and after yours!" Jim was not bad at this at all!
"The window the deputy looked out – which way does it face?" Heyes hoped there was a clue here, if only a vague one.
Jim thought for a moment, picturing the scene in his head. "North." He nodded – he was sure.
"But what about Charlie? And what about the other guys you were supposed to watch?" Heyes was about going crazy waiting for Jim to stutter through each answer, although truthfully the man was getting better month by month and he wasn't in a bad state at all during this interrogation.
"I heard m-m-most of what went on at the saloon, I think. Nothing on the K-K-Kid, no lynching t-t-talk. Only one r-r-robber brought in last month – stage hold up, but not match t-t-taken. P-P-Publisher, J-J-Jeffers and his son – they just sounded mad. M-M-MacAvoy, the r-r-reporter, c-c-came b-b-by, p-p-played p-p-poker with me and some guys a while. B-B-Bad p-p-player – usually b-b-better I think. Seemed d-d-distracted. D-D-Didn't like having Charlie there – rival newsman, you know." Jim stopped and looked at Heyes carefully as he got ready to deliver some news. "I think he's t-t-trying to find out same thing we are – asked out loud why other p-p-papers had st-st-story he d-d-didn't have! Said sheriff wouldn't say anything – c-c-couldn't say where the lies came from!"
Heyes had more questions, but the horse was walked out by then and both men were hungry for beef stew that they could smell cooking in the cabin. So they went in and Heyes summarized Jim's answers for Wiseman. Jim told about how Sorensen the paper supplier came by and joined the poker game, but he didn't seem upset at all. Jimmy Worth the paper boy dropped by to see if his uncle Worth Hawes who ran the saloon needed anything, but Jim hadn't noticed anything unusual there.
Heyes, however, was plenty nervous and distracted. "There's sure something going on! But I don't have enough information to do anything! I don't suppose you got any signal from Charlie about what he was getting or when he'll be back?"
"No – you t-t-told us n-n-not t-t-to talk or even look at each other!" Jim was a bit annoyed at the question.
"So I did," said Heyes with a wink, "but men have been known to go against orders."
The next morning Jim got up about dawn and got a quick breakfast before riding into town to hang around and see what else he could discover.
"Be careful!" Heyes called after him as he rode away with his shadow long before him in the early morning light. The former outlaw felt like somebody's mother, trying to protect her boy and unable to do anything about it. He kept a pair of horses ready in the corral, wondering when Charlie might ride in and when Jim would be back.
It was getting late in the afternoon when Charlie appeared on a dusty chestnut mare, walking slowly. As soon as Charlie had the saddle and bridle off of her and had her safely corralled, he headed to the pump outside the cabin to wash the dust off himself. Heyes met him there. "Well?" the Kid's partner asked. "What'd you learn? What happened? Jim alright?"
"Jim's fine – he seems born for this kind of game. You wouldn't believe how good he was." Heyes nodded – he was starting to believe. "There are any number of suspicious men in and out of that town. Down at the black smith's shop, there were all kinds of rumors about strange reporters and law men in and out because of those newspaper stories the last couple of weeks. Whole place has the jumps looking for you, Heyes. And they're all wondering where the Kid really is since the sheriff won't say anything except that it's all a lie. There's no solid rumor about what's really going on, and sure no talk of lynching. But I came back fast 'cause I think I might be onto something. That reporter, MacAvoy, seems a nervous man. Keeps losing at poker."
"Yeah, Jim noticed that." Heyes agreed.
"And his friend Gunther – don't know his first name – rode in early in the morning all dusty and had something pressing to tell his pal. Woke him up in his hotel room. Then they rode away together. Both came back couple hours later. But while they were gone, rumors were flying. Seems MacAvoy's been in town and then riding out every evening and back in the morning for about the last week, maybe week and a half, depending upon whether you belief the paper boy or the blacksmith or the madam at the saloon."
"That's about right for when the Kid vanished," Heyes said very quietly, "Which way does he ride out of town?"
"North." The word was hardly out of the professor's mouth before Heyes was running toward the corral, putting his hat on his head. "Wait," Charlie Homer cried after him, "where are you going?"
Heyes answered as he mounted up, "North was the way the deputy looked when Jim said the Kid's name to him! Maybe they're in cahoots, I don't know. But if somebody's riding out of town every day, maybe they're riding off to where they've got the Kid stashed! An out of work reporter could sure make hay off the Kid and me and those stories! He could be lying through his teeth about the story he can't get!"
The professor was running back towards the corral himself, "That's what I figured, too! Wait, Heyes! I was going to change horses and try to track him – since he would be about ready to leave by the time I can get there! You can't go, Heyes! Every man, woman, and child in that town is looking for you!"
Heyes called back to his professor from horseback, "I got to! Everyone in town knows your face now, and Jim's! And they all know Wiseman anyhow. With this beard, maybe they won't figure me out – in the dark. Anyway, no time to argue – I'm going and you ain't! That's orders!" And with that Heyes necked reined his black horse hard and rode off at a lope into the late afternoon sun, leading a saddled horse behind him. Wiseman, hearing his friend Charlie's yell, came out and the two graying men shook their heads as they watched Heyes vanish into the hills. As headstrong as he was, they knew there was no use in trying to stop him. When Jim rode in an hour later, he had not crossed Heyes' path. It was all they could do to keep him from riding back into town after Heyes.
"Heroes and young men!" muttered Wiseman. "Damned fools, all!" It sounded to Charlie like the first lines of some epic western poem.
More than two hours after Heyes had ridden west toward Lodge Grass, the sun was nearly gone. Heyes had stashed his horses behind a shed and some trees just beyond the northernmost streets of the little town of Lodge Grass. He found a hidden spot where he could watch the road north out of town. It was getting so late that he figured he must have missed MacAvoy entirely – maybe the man had left town before Heyes ever arrived.
Heyes finally caught sight of a lone horseman heading north. He was close enough to the road to get a good look at the horseman riding north – he was sure it was the dark-haired, dark-eyed, short, lean, thin-lipped man in a short-brimmed black hat that Wiseman had described as Ren MacAvoy. He was the reporter who was now out of work – but perhaps had found another way to make money.
As soon as MacAvoy was far enough gone, Heyes fetched his horses and cautiously rode north. He followed the reporter very distantly, mostly by faint sound and rising dust in the gathering dusk. As the sky grew black, Heyes dared to follow a little more closely, very cautiously keeping quiet. When he had rigged the horses the day before, and re-checked them that day, he had carefully wrapped buckles and parts of the bridles and saddles that could have clinked or squeaked. Soon there was only a crescent moon and the myriad western stars for Heyes to see by. The trail MacAvoy was following slowly wound into the sparsely wooded hills northwest of town.
Finally, Heyes saw a light flare ahead. There was some kind of a building. Heyes dismounted and crept up close, moving from bush to tree to bush, staying hidden but watching.
MacAvoy rode up to a little cabin, dismounted, and tied up his horse out front. A door creaked as it opened. Someone was there to let MacAvoy in. A voice carried into the quiet darkness. It was a woman's voice. She was laughing in a way that sounded familiar – not the voice, but the general manner. As MacAvoy answered her, he was laughing, too. There was no tension in either voice – only affection and eagerness.
Heyes exhaled in disappointed frustration. This wasn't the site of a kidnapping or any evil doing – it was a love nest! MacAvoy had been riding out to meet his lover, and nothing more. Just in case it could be a combination of a love nest and a kidnapping, Heyes stay to watch and listen for a while. But no, judging by the shadows through the lace curtains, and then by what he could hear, nothing but lovemaking was going on in that cabin. Heyes felt jealous, thinking of the woman he had left behind. But mostly he felt disappointed and frustrated – and damned foolish. He was no closer to finding the Kid than he had been a day before. For him, if not for MacAvoy, the night had been wasted. Heyes carefully crept back to his horses and mounted up. He rode slowly and quietly to make sure he couldn't be heard by the lovers in the cabin. When he was safely away from the isolated cabin, Heyes took up a lope toward Lodge Grass.
Heyes rode near to town, trying to find the way he had come from Wiseman's place on the edge of the Crazy N Ranch. The last thing he wanted was to get lost in the hills of Montana! As Heyes neared the lights of town, he thought he heard hoof beats coming behind him. "That MacAvoy works fast!" he thought. Heyes stopped and took his horses off the road behind some bushes to watch whoever it was riding rapidly out of the north into Lodge Grass. But it wasn't MacAvoy. It was a more slender figure not wearing a hat. Heyes dismounted and crept into town to see where the lone horseman went. He went toward the Lodge Pine saloon.
But it wasn't a he – it was a she. A slender blonde woman in a long, dark cloak got off the horse and led it to a small stable behind the saloon. A few minutes later, she emerged from the stable and went in a back door of the saloon, looking carefully around her. There was no way to figure out where she had come from, but it was somewhere north of Lodge Grass. How many people had secrets north of a town this small? It seemed to Heyes that perhaps he hadn't wasted the night after all.