The Best Western Novels of William MacLeod Raine. William MacLeod Raine
came, so I concluded that order wasn't for me, and lit out kinder unceremonious.”
Hastily the fugitives donned the new costumes and dominos, turned their notes over to Denver, and swung to their saddles.
“Good luck!” the punchers called after them, and Denver added an ironical promise that the foreman had no doubt he would keep. “I'll look out for Nora—Darling.” There was a drawling pause between the first and second names. “I'll ce'tainly see that she don't have any time to worry about y'u, Mac.”
“Y'u go to Halifax,” returned Mac genially over his shoulder as he loped away.
“I doubt if we can get out by the roads. Soon as we reach the end of the street we better cut across that hayfield,” suggested Ned.
“That's whatever. Then we'll slip past the sentries without being seen. I'd hate to spoil any of them if we can help it. We're liable to get ourselves disliked if our guns spatter too much.”
They rode through the main street, still noisy with the shouts of late revelers returning to their quarters. Masked men were yet in evidence occasionally, so that their habits caused neither remark nor suspicion. A good many of the punchers, unable to stay longer, were slipping out of town after having made a night of it. In the general exodus the two friends hoped to escape unobserved.
They dropped into a side street, galloped down it for two hundred yards, and dismounted at a barb-wire fence which ran parallel with the road. The foreman's wire-clippers severed the strands one by one, and they led their horses through the gap. They crossed an alfalfa-field, jumped an irrigation ditch, used the clippers again, and found themselves in a large pasture. It was getting lighter every moment, and while they were still in the pasture a voice hailed them from the road in an unmistakable command to halt.
They bent low over the backs of their ponies and gave them the spur. The shot they had expected rang out, passing harmlessly over them. Another followed, and still another.
“That's right. Shoot up the scenery. Y'u don't hurt us none,” the foreman said, apostrophizing the man behind the gun.
The next clipped fence brought them to the open country. For half an hour they rode swiftly without halt. Then McWilliams drew up.
“Where are we making for?”
“How about the Wind River country?”
“Won't do. First off, they'll strike right down that way after us. What's the matter with running up Sweetwater Creek and lying out in the bad lands around the Roubideaux?”
“Good. I have a sheep-camp up that way. I can arrange to have grub sent there for us by a man I can trust.”
“All right. The Roubideaux goes.”
While they were nooning at a cow-spring, Bannister, lying on his back, with his face to the turquoise sky, became aware that a vagrant impulse had crystallized to a fixed determination. He broached it at once to his companion.
“One thing is a cinch, Mac. Neither y'u nor I will be safe in this country now until we have broken up the gang of desperadoes that is terrorizing this country. If we don't get them they will get us. There isn't any doubt about that. I'm not willing to lie down before these miscreants. What do y'u say?”
“I'm with y'u, old man. But put a name to it. What are y'u proposing?”
“I'm proposing that y'u and I make it our business not to have any other business until we clean out this nest of wolves. Let's go right after them, and see if we can't wipe out the Shoshone-Teton outfit.”
“How? They own the law, don't they?”
“They don't own the United States Government. When they held up a mail-train they did a fool thing, for they bucked up against Uncle Sam. What I propose is that we get hold of one of the gang and make him weaken. Then, after we have got hold of some evidence that will convict, we'll go out and run down my namesake Ned Bannister. If people once get the idea that his hold isn't so strong there's a hundred people that will testify against him. We'll have him in a Government prison inside of six months.”
“Or else he'll have us in a hole in the ground,” added the foreman, dryly.
“One or the other,” admitted Bannister. “Are y'u in on this thing?”
“I surely am. Y'u're the best man I've met up with in a month of Sundays, seh. Y'u ain't got but one fault; and that is y'u don't smoke cigareets. Feed yourself about a dozen a day and y'u won't have a blamed trouble left. Match, seh?” The foreman of the Lazy D, already following his own advice, rolled deftly his smoke, moistened it and proceeded to blow away his troubles.
Bannister looked at his debonair insouciance and laughed. “Water off a duck's back,” he quoted. “I know some folks that would be sweating fear right now. It's ce'tainly an aggravating situation, that of being an honest man hunted as a villain by a villain. But I expaict my cousin's enjoying it.”
“He ain't enjoying it so much as he would if his plans had worked out a little smoother. He's holding the sack right now and cussing right smaht over it being empty, I reckon.”
“He did lock the stable door a little too late,” chuckled the sheepman. But even as he spoke a shadow fell over his face. “My God! I had forgotten. Y'u don't suppose he would take it out of Miss Messiter.”
“Not unless he's tired of living,” returned her foreman, darkly. “One thing, this country won't stand for is that. He's got to keep his hands off women or he loses out. He dassent lay a hand on them if they don't want him to. That's the law of the plains, isn't it?”
“That's the unwritten law for the bad man, but I notice it doesn't seem to satisfy y'u, my friend. Y'u and I know that my cousin, Ned Bannister, doesn't acknowledge any law, written or unwritten. He's a devil and he has no fear. Didn't he kidnap her before?”
“He surely would never dare touch those young ladies. But—I don't know. Bann, I guess we better roll along toward the Lazy D country, after all.”
“I think so.” Ned looked at his friend with smiling drollery. “I thought y'u smoked your troubles away, Jim. This one seems to worry y'u.”
McWilliams grinned sheepishly. “There's one trouble won't be smoked away. It kinder dwells.” Then, apparently apropos of nothing, he added, irrelevantly: “Wonder what Denver's doing right now?”
“Probably keeping that appointment y'u ran away from,” bantered his friend.
“I'll bet he is. Funny how some men have all the luck,” murmured the despondent foreman.
Chapter 16.
Hunting Big Game
In point of fact, Denver's occupation at that moment was precisely what they had guessed it to be. He was sitting beside Nora Darling in the grand stand, explaining to her the fine points of “roping.” Mr. Bob Austin, commonly known as “Texas,” was meanwhile trying to make himself agreeable to Helen Messiter. Truth to tell, both young women listened with divided interest to their admirers. Both of them had heard the story of the night, and each of them had tucked away in her corsage a scribbled note she wanted to get back to her room and read again. That the pursuit was still on everybody knew, and those on the inside were aware that the “King,” masquerading under the name of Jack Holloway, was the active power behind the sheriff stimulating the chase.
It was after the roping had begun, and Austin had been called away to take his turn, that the outlaw chief sauntered along the aisle of the grand stand to the box in which was seated the mistress of the Lazy D.
“Beautiful mo'ning, isn't it? Delightfully crisp and clear,” he said by way of introduction, stopping at her box.
She understood the subtle jeer in his manner, and her fine courage rose to