"Maybe I might, and maybe I mightn't," said the sheriff. "All depends."

"And bring some friends with you," insisted Vance.

Then he wisely let the subject drop and went on to a detailed description
of the game in the hills around the ranch. That, he knew, would bring the
sheriff if anything would. But he mentioned the invitation no more. There
were particular reasons why he must not press it on the sheriff any more
than on others in Craterville.

The next morning, before traintime, Vance went to the post office and
left the article on Black Jack addressed to Terence Colby at the Cornish
ranch. The addressing was done on a typewriter, which completely removed
any means of identifying the sender. Vance played with Providence in only
one way. He was so eager to strike his blow at the last possible moment
that he asked the postmaster to hold the letter for three days, which
would land it at the ranch on the morning of the birthday. Then he went
to the train.

His self-respect was increasing by leaps and bounds. The game was still
not won, but, starring with absolutely nothing, in six days he had
planted a charge which might send Elizabeth's twenty-four years of labor
up in smoke.

He got off the train at Preston, the station nearest the ranch, and took
a hired team up the road along Bear Creek Gorge. They debouched out of
the Blue Mountains into the valley of the ranch in the early evening, and
Vance found himself looking with new eyes on the little kingdom. He felt
the happiness, indeed, of one who has lost a great prize and then put
himself in a fair way of winning it back.