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Updated: May 13, 2025
Half an hour later the party filed out to the creosote flats and struck across country toward Mesa. Flatray was riding pillion behind Tim. His own horse was being used as a pack saddle. The tenderfoot, slithering down a hillside of shale, caught at a greasewood bush and waited. The sound of a rifle shot had drifted across the ridge to him. Friend or foe, it made no difference to him now.
"Never mind that now. You died to save me. Always I'll remember that." "Onct you 'most loved me.... But it wouldn't have done. I'm a wolf and you're a little white lamb. Is Flatray the man?" "Yes." "Thought so. Well, he's square. I rigged it up on him about the rustling. I was the man you liked to 'a' caught that day years ago." "You!" "Yep." He broke off abruptly.
He laughed quietly, as if it were a joke, but the girl answered with a flush. "Is that all?" "That's all." "If I knew, do you suppose I would tell for five thousand or ten thousand?" For some reason this seemed to give him sardonic amusement. "No, I don't suppose you would." "You'll have to catch him yourself if you want him. I'm not in that business, Mr. Flatray." "I am.
"I think so, you hellhound. You're going to hold me against her so that she can't change her mind." "Exactly. So that she can't rue back. You've guessed it." They rode for hours, but in what direction it was impossible for Flatray to guess. He could tell when they were ascending, when dropping down hill, but in a country so rugged this meant nothing.
Yet neither of them knew how to avert the calamity that appeared impending. One factor alone saved the situation for the moment. Flatray had not yet heard of the shooting of Bellamy. Had he known he would have arrested Boone on the spot and the latter would have drawn and fought it out. Into the room sauntered Lee. "Hello, 'Lissie. Been looking for you an hour, honey. Mornin', Norris. Howdy, Jack!
We're interested in the Monte Cristo mine, and it has done so well that we moved to town," she explained. At the first bend in the mountain road Jack had turned in his saddle to look at her as she climbed the steep. A quarter of a mile farther up there was another curve, which swept the trail within sight of the summit. Here Flatray pulled up and got out his field glasses.
His first thought was of relief, of profound comfort; his next of wonder and suspicion. How under heaven had Melissy won his life for him? He looked quickly at her, but the eyes of the girl did not meet his. "Melissy." Flatray spoke very gently, but something in the way he spoke compelled the young woman to meet his eyes. Almost instantly the long lashes went down to her pale cheeks again.
Five minutes later number seven was steaming away into the distant desert. Flatray gave a sharp, shrill whistle; and from behind some sand dunes emerged two men and four horses. "Anything new?" asked the sheriff as they came nearer. "Not a thing, cap," answered one of them. "Boys, shake hands with the famous Lieutenant O'Connor," said Flatray, with a sneer hid by the darkness.
Without another word, they turned back to rejoin the group by the cabin. Before they had gone a dozen steps she stopped. "What about Mr. Flatray? You will free him, of course." "Yes. I'll take him right out due north of here, about four miles. He'll be blindfolded. There we'll leave him, with instructions how to reach Mesa." "I'll go with you," she announced promptly. "What for?"
Jack Flatray found out the whole thing and told him. He was very insistent on dropping it, Mr. Flatray says." "You say Jack found out all about it, honey?" repeated Lee in surprise. He was seated in a big chair on the porch, and she nestled on one arm of it, rumpled his gray hair as she had always done since she had been a little girl, kissed him, and plunged into her story.
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