But he wanted to have the deputies there.
At dusk he got his call.

He learned that four picked men had started for the Pass, and that they would reach the divide by daybreak.

Others were on their way to intercept Al Woodruff if he crossed before then.
It was all that Swan could have hoped for,--more than he had dared to expect on such short notice.

He notified the operator that he would not be there to receive anything else, until he returned to report that he had got his men.
"Don't count your chickens till they're hatched," came facetiously out of the blue.
"By golly, I can hear them holler in the shell," Swan sent back, grinning to himself as he rattled the key.

"That irrigation graft is killed now.