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"Good Kitty, faithful little mare," she exclaimed emotionally. Then she looked ahead and she remembered all. "But on, girl, on. There is more to do yet." The telegraph operator at Damside was closing up his little shack.
A big box carried an iron wash-basin, and a small table some drawing instruments. Lister was not fastidious, and, as a rule, did not stop long enough at one spot to justify his making his shack comfortable. Besides, he found it necessary to concentrate on his work, and had not much time to think about refinements. All the same, he felt the shack was dreary and his life was bleak.
Conrad, still examining his watch, heard him depart by the back door, drawing it carefully behind him, and tramp in his heavy dragging way round the shack to the path leading down to the camp. Alone, the foreman rose and pulled out a drawer, frowning critically into it. The task of selecting his evening tie was interrupted by a subdued grunt from the doorway.
The comfort and security of the warm little shack, as well as the good meal Fred had given him, had loosened the old man's tongue. "I never liked this gent. I only saw him once, but it don't take me long to make up my mind. He carried a cane and had his monogram on his socks that was enough for me and a red tie on him, so red you'd think his throat was cut.
But Peter suddenly seized his wrist with his other hand, and it closed on it like a vice. "Don't drive me to force," he warned. "That saloon is closed to you to-night. Do you understand? I've got to say things that'll likely change your way of thinking. Don't be a fool; come on up to my shack."
Then a slow grin crept to his face. "Gee Gosh!" he said, softly. "Gee Gosh! It's you!" Chance lay down panting. He had come far and fast. Sundown gathered up the blanket and pan, rose and marched to the shack. "I was airin' 'em out against your comin' back," he explained, untruthfully. The fact was that he could not bear to see the empty bed in the lean-to and had hidden it in the bushes.
"Douse her, Tom!" cried the young chief, and Tom did so with good effect. Meanwhile Vincent's crowd, thinking they had put their fire out, had turned away, while Vincent shut off the valve that controlled the outlet from the tank. No sooner had this been done than the fire in their shack blazed up again. "Look!" cried John Boll, one of Vincent's crew.
Their numbers were over small to attack the formidable long riders, but they wanted blood. Before Whistling Dan reached the valley of Bald-eagle Creek they were in the saddle and riding hotly in pursuit. In that time ruined shack towards which the posse and Dan Barry rode, the outlaws sat about on the floor eating their supper when Hal Purvis entered.
Out to the broken-backed shack rode Pierre le Rouge, Pierre the Red, as everyone in the north country knew him. His second horse, staunch cow-pony that it was, stumbled on with sagging knees and hanging head, but Pierre rode upright, at ease, for his mind was untired. Broken-backed indeed was the house before which he dismounted.
They had been expecting, not peace and reservation life, but freedom and battle. David Bond felt a double need for his quick departure and his services among the gathering war-bands. He hastened his few remaining tasks and set the day for the start. Now, the day was come. His farewells had been said at the shack and at headquarters.
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