They leaned about his desk and questioned him with gesticulations, but he only stared.

They were all dim as dream people to Billy the clerk, whose mind was far away struggling with his problem.
"Pore old Billy is kind of dazed," suggested a woman.

"Don't bother him, Bud.

Look here!" The tide of noise and faces broke on either side of the desk and swayed off towards the inner office and vaguely Billy felt that they should not be there--the sheriff's privacy--the thought almost drew him back to complete consciousness, but he was borne off from them, again, on a wave of study, pictures.

Off there to the east went the fifteen best men of the mountain-desert on the trail of the slender fellow with the black hair and the soft brown eyes.