One after another of these returned, empty-handed, covered with dust and mud, their horses exhausted, to be met and passed by fresh posses starting out to continue the pursuit.

The sheriff of Santa Clara County sent down his bloodhounds from San Jose--small, harmless-looking dogs, with a terrific bay--to help in the chase.

Reporters from the San Francisco papers appeared, interviewing every one, sometimes even accompanying the searching bands.
Horse hoofs clattered over the roads at night; bells were rung, the "Mercury" issued extra after extra; the bloodhounds bayed, gun butts clashed on the asphalt pavements of Bonneville; accidental discharges of revolvers brought the whole town into the street; farm hands called to each other across the fences of ranch-divisions--in a word, the country-side was in an uproar.
And all to no effect.

The hoof-marks of Dyke's horse had been traced in the mud of the road to within a quarter of a mile of the foot-hills and there irretrievably lost.

Three days after the hold-up, a sheep-herder was found who had seen the highwayman on a ridge in the higher mountains, to the northeast of Taurusa.