In the course of nine hours Lafe, Jr., returned with the doctor. By that time Mrs. Horne had taken to her bed and was almost as much in need of Armstrong's services as was her husband. He made a brief examination and reported that the wounds were dangerous, but not necessarily fatal. The patient's advanced age was his greatest concern. Reassured on this point, Johnson and his son went to sleep.
The cowman sent for his manager in early afternoon.
"Lafe," he said, "I'm going to get all right. I've got enough nurses here, and I want you to go get Steve Moffatt. He's always tried to give me and you dirt, and I'm beginning to think that the Lord intended you to round him up. Take what money you need and go fetch him."
"And, say," the cowman called after him, "when you catch him, bring him here to me. Whether he's living or dead, bring him here to me. I want to see Steve Moffatt for what he did yesterday."
Lafe promised and went out. He found his son near the corral, repairing a cinch with a bit of twine.
The boss paused in his walk and surveyed him critically for some moments.
"I'm going after a man I've hunted for sixteen years," he said.
"Steve Moffatt," his father replied. "How did you know? Him and me have been shooting each other up since we were old enough to carry a gun."
Lafe, Jr., turned to his task of repairing the cinch again, and said nothing more for a few minutes. His father was inside the corral, roping a fresh mount.
"You might catch me ol' Beanbelly, Dad," Lafe, Jr., cried to him.
"Why, you're going to take me along, ain't you? You're going to give me a chance at him, too, ain't you?"
"You're damn whistlin' I am," said his father. "Come and get your horse."
For twelve days Lafe and his son followed the trail of the outlaw. Sometimes they lost trace of him, but Moffatt could never refrain from trifling displays of bravado which betrayed his identity everywhere he moved, so that Johnson was able to pick up his tracks without much loss of time. He was never more than three days behind Moffatt.
Evidently foreseeing that the telegraph of the entire continent would be put in service to capture him, Moffatt did not attempt to get out of the country by train or by any of the frequented roads of travel. He kept to the by-trails and the wildest regions. Instead of stealing over the Border, he headed north. Lafe heard of him one day in a mountain hamlet; the next at the home of a nester, in a deep valley thirty miles distant. So with his son he followed him along the Border, up into New Mexico and across it, over the San Andres Mountains and onward towards the Capitan range.