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Poe hardly knew what to think. The information was, at least, impressive.

"What you tell me may be true," he said at length. "But it's hard to believe. However, it may be worth investigating. Here's a dollar for you. Go buy yourself a few drinks."

So Billy the Kid was betrayed for a silver dollar by a rum-soaked bum of the boozing-kens. Four drinks of whisky, according to current quotations in White Oaks bars, was the price paid for the secret upon which his life hung as by a hair.

Poe walked in on Garrett in Lincoln next day.

"I don't believe it," said Garrett.

"Neither do I," replied Poe. "But let's take a chance."

"Humph!" Garrett rubbed his nose reflectively. "Well, we'll go. But I warn you it'll be just another wild-goose chase."

Sheriff Garrett and Poe rode into Roswell next day and laid the clue before Tip McKinney, one of Garrett's deputies, a veteran man-hunter hailing from Uvalde in Texas.

"I don't take any more stock in it than you fellows," said McKinney. "There's about as much chance of the Kid being in Fort Sumner as of me flying to the moon."

But that evening at sundown the expedition of the three sceptics started from Roswell. They headed toward Lincoln to avert suspicion as to their destination. Ten miles out, they turned sharply to the north. That way Fort Sumner lay.

They rode till midnight, when they picketed their horses and slept on their saddle-blankets. Next day they travelled fifty-five miles and camped for the night in the sandhills six miles from Fort Sumner.