The captain said, “I wonder how come they had to burn the haystack. Seems like a spiteful thing.”

Willingham said, “They saw one of the boys run and hide himself in it. They thought he might be Colonel Dawkins, so they burned him out. Singed his whiskers but didn’t hurt him.”

If Caleb Dawkins was glad to see the scouts he kept his pleasure well concealed. He gave Rusty a moment’s attention, then turned on the captain. “It is way past time for you-all to show up, after the trail’s gone cold. You ought to’ve been here last night.”

The captain’s jaw hardened, but he remained painfully civil. “We can’t be everywhere at once. There’s a lot of country to cover and only a few of us to do it.”

Dawkins repeated the story Willingham had told, with a few extra embellishments and a strong condemnation of James Monahan. “That boy is beating on the doors of hell, and if the law doesn’t let him in, I will!”

“Willingham says they made a point of lookin’ for you. How come they didn’t find you?”

Dawkins glanced away, not meeting the corporal’s probing gaze. “They didn’t look everywhere.”

Willingham had already divulged that Dawkins had taken cover beneath his porch.

The captain said, “At least nobody was killed.”

“No thanks to James Monahan. You’d better bring him in. Better yet, kill him where you find him.” Dawkins faced Rusty. “Lest somebody turn him loose again.”

Pete Dawkins came into the house as the rangers were about to leave. “Papa, looks like we’ve come up short some horses after all.”

Dawkins turned back to the captain. “Well, there you have it. The raid on the headquarters was meant to cover the theft of my horses.”

Whitfield promised, “We’ll look around and report back to you.”

Rusty had no difficulty in finding the trail left by the retreating raiders. Its westward course was plain enough.

Whitfield had been circling in another direction. Finding nothing, he came to Rusty. “What did you find?”

Rusty pointed to the tracks. “No more horses than what they were ridin’, the best I can see. If anybody stole the colonel’s horses, it was a separate bunch and went off in another direction.”

“It could have been like the colonel said. The raid on the headquarters was a diversion.”

“Not to James Monahan it wasn’t, if he was really here.”

“These tracks lead toward the Monahan farm, don’t they? I believe he was here.”

Rusty could not argue the point. He believed it himself.

Whitfield sent Tanner and the Morris brothers to make a wider circle and look for tracks of stolen horses being driven away. With Rusty beside him, he delivered what information he had back to Dawkins, who waited in front of his house. He said, “We’ll go talk to the Monahan family.”

Dawkins grunted disapproval. “They won’t tell you anything but lies. There won’t be peace around here ‘I’ll that nest of unionist trash is cleaned out, from the old man down to the women and kids.”