There were two men in the office with Dale.

Owen saw them and heard their voices as he crept to a point under the window in the dense blackness of the night.
The men Dale had sent to Tucson had not required the full two weeks for the trip; they had made it in ten days, and their faces, as they sat before Dale in the office, showed the effects of their haste.

Yet they grinned at Dale as they talked, glowing with pride over their achievement, but the word they brought to Dale did not please him, and he sat glaring at them until they finished.
"Gary Miller ain't been heard of for a month, eh ?" he said.

"You say you heard he started this way?
Then where in hell is he ?" Neither of the men could answer that question and Dale dismissed them.
Then he walked to a door, opened it, and called to someone in another room.

Dave Silverthorn entered the office, and for more than an hour the two talked, their conversation being punctuated with futile queries and profanity.
At ten o'clock the next morning Dale appeared at the Double A ranchhouse.