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Every man turned to look, and what they saw drove from their minds all thoughts of carrying out Phonograph Davis's rather time-worn contribution to the evening's amusement. Bigger game than the Marquis was at hand, and his captors released him and stood staring at the approaching victim. The buckboard and team belonged to Sam Holly, a cattleman from the Big Muddy.
A less resolute man would have dropped the whole thing after the alarm had been given and ridden away at once. But he was no quitter. So he was seeing it out. The cattleman led the procession through the side door into the street. Sunshine warm and mellow still bathed the street, just as it had done ten minutes earlier. But there was a difference. Dave felt a shiver run down his spine.
The cattleman, too, observed it, and proudly expressed himself to the biggest brother. "Say!" he whispered, "don't she cover a lot o' terrytory!" The little girl was aware of the attention she was attracting, and she kept a graceful poise, looking neither to one side nor the other. Each girl on the rack held something in her hands that suggested the wealth of the particular State she symbolized.
The big cattleman wiped a growing perspiration from his forehead and considered his boss with plaintive eyes. "This tenderfoot who's coming is green to the range, but he's a hard man; a fine horseman, a sure shot, and a natural fighter. More than that, he's coming here looking for trouble; and he'll expect to get the trouble from you." Lawlor brushed his moustache anxiously.
The exertion started a spurt of warm blood at the shoulder, but Roy clenched his teeth and clung to the pommel to steady himself. The cattleman led the horse and Beulah walked beside him. "I can get another pony for you at Cameron's," she explained. "Just above there is a short cut by way of Dolores Sinks. You ought to be across the divide before morning. I'll show you the trail."
He urged his horse into a lope, and a little beyond the town dismounted to pick up the trail of the fugitive, if it could be found. Thanks to a recent shower, the ground was still soft, and the cattleman soon picked up the trail of a shod horse, leading away from the road and out upon the turf.
On either hand and behind were the grown people, the Dutchman and his wife, the young couple from the West Fork, the cattleman, "Frenchy," the Swede, and the big brothers and their mother. When the family entered, the room was so full that the eldest and the youngest brothers had to content themselves with a perch on the coal-bins.
The lean Arizona-born youth slid from the fence on his prod-pole and stepped forward till he stood beside the buckboard of the cattleman. "I'm the man you're lookin' for, Mr. West." The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand looked him over with keen eyes around which nets of little wrinkles spread. "What man?" he asked. "The one to help Mr. Garrison take the cattle to Denver."
The little photograph showed a tall, handsome, vigorous looking man, in the garb of a cattleman, half turned in his saddle, with one hand resting on his pony's flank. The man was Wade. With his other hand, he was pointing ahead, apparently for the benefit of a girl a very good looking girl whose fine head was thrown back, as the wind blew her hair into pretty disorder.
The cattleman waited, crouched behind an out-jutting pillar in the wall of the entrance. Every minute he expected to see a furtive figure sneak past him into the street. His hopes were disappointed. It was nearly midnight when two men, talking cheerfully of the last gusher in, the Buckburnett field, emerged from the stairway and passed into the street.
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