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into the main street, halted abruptly beside the two officers, his pony marbled with sweat and foam.

"El Chivato," he announced excitedly, "asesinó a sus dos guardias en Lincoln y se escapó a las sierras. Cogió la pistola de Bell mientras jugaban a monte y tiró una bala dejándole muerto. Luego mató a Ollinger con su propria escopeta cuando éste corrió a través de la calle. Después montó a caballo y huyó del pueblo hacia el poniente. Nadie sabe donde se encuentra ahora."

Which conveyed succinctly the news of the tragedy in Lincoln and the escape of Billy the Kid.

Garrett stared at Poe and Poe stared at Garrett. For an interval neither uttered a word. The news struck them like a blow between the eyes.

"Ain't that hell?" said Garrett at length. "I told those fellows to watch the Kid. They must have got careless. Now they're dead and the Kid's gone. That means I've got to do it all over again. Now I've got to kill the Kid or get killed trying. He won't be taken alive again. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. I'll saddle up and strike back for Lincoln."

A few minutes later, Sheriff Garrett went galloping out of town. Out of the mountains about White Oaks, across the Carrizozo plains, up the steep hairpin curves of Nogal Hill, along the edges of dizzy precipices with a thousand-feet drop beneath him, and then on the long down-grade beyond, he travelled under whip and spur, driving his pony to the last limit of its speed. He startled the Mexican farmers in their little jacals along the road as he went dashing past with thunder of hoofs and swirls of dust. Into the pleasant valley of the Bonito he came at last and without drawing rein burst into Lincoln, his sweat-lathered horse staggering with exhaustion.