The fool subsided a second time.

"Lookit here, Jake," Piney continued to the sheriff's address, "you
don't have to kick my wood all over the county, do you?"

"I'm lookin' for the knife," explained the sheriff, ceasing not to
stub his toes against the solid chunks. "Feller after doing a thing
like this gets flustrated sometimes and drops the knife. And finding
the knife might be a help in locating the feller."

All of which seemed sufficiently logical to the bystanders.

Racey decided he had seen enough. Besides, he wanted to camp closer to
his warbags. He should have been in his room before this, and he would
have been had he cared to make himself conspicuous by not going along
with the crowd to see what Piney Jackson had found.

Declining Swing's earnest invitation to drink he returned to the
hotel. Swing went grouchily to the Happy Heart, wondering what was the
matter with his friend. It was not like the Racey he knew to play the
hermit.

Once in his room Racey again explored his own and Swing's saddlebags
and _cantenas_, looked under the cots and through the bedclothes. But
he found nothing that did not belong to either himself or Swing.

"They didn't make a second trip," he said to himself. "I'm betting
it's Jack Harpe. Shore it is, the polecat."