The Deputy gave one look at the big black dog, heaved a breath of relief, and stopped.
"'Tain't no manner o' use chasin' him now, boys," he decreed, "because, as we all know, Dan kin run right away from the best runner amongst us. But now I know him--an' I've suspicioned him this two month, only I couldn't git no clue--_I'll git him_, never you fear. Jest now, ye'd better help me carry Jim home, so's we kin git him doctored up in good shape. I reckon Nipsiwaska County can't afford to lose Mr. Assistant-Deputy Sheriff. That there skunk-oil on Dan's moccasins fooled _both_ Jim an' me, good an' plenty, didn't it?"
"But whatever did he want o' my mitts?" demanded Big Andy.
"Now ye _air_ a sap-head, Andy Stevens," growled MacDonald, "ef ye can't see _that_!"
The Deputy-Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County had spent half an hour at the telephone. In the backwoods the telephone wires go everywhere. In that half-hour every settlement, every river-crossing, every lumber-camp, and most of the wide-scattered pioneer cabins had been warned of the flight of the thief, Dan Black, nicknamed Black Dan, and how, in the effort to secure his escape, he had shot and wounded the Deputy-Sheriff's big black dog whose cleverness on the trail he had such cause to dread. As Tug Blackstock, the Deputy-Sheriff, came out of the booth he asked after Jim.
"Oh, Black Dan's bullet broke no bones that time," replied the village doctor, who had tended the dog's wound as carefully as if his patient had been the Deputy himself. "It's a biggish hole, but Jim'll be all right in a few days, never fear."
"Ye don't seem to be worryin' much about Black Dan's gittin' away, Tug," grumbled Long Jackson, who was not unnaturally sore over the loss of his money.
"No, I ain't worryin' much," agreed the Deputy, with a confident grin, "now I know Jim ain't goin' to lose a leg. As for Black Dan's gittin' away, well, I've got me own notions about that. I've 'phoned all over the three counties, and given warnin' to every place he kin stop for a bite or a bed. He can't cross the river to get over the Border, for I've sent word to hev every bridge an' ferry watched. Black Dan's cunnin' enough to know I'd do jest that, first thing, so he won't waste his time tryin' the river. He'll strike right back into the big timber, countin' on the start he's got of us, now he's put Jim out of the game. But I guess I kin trail him myself--now I know what I'm trailin'--pretty nigh as well as Jim could. I've took note of his tracks, and there ain't another pair o' boots in Brine's Rip Mills like them he's wearin'."