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At this juncture the florid and flushed face of Webb was seen as he emerged from the doorway of the depot. He was bent under a weighty bag of flour, and smiled and waved his hat by way of salutation as he advanced to a buggy at a public hitching-rack and deposited his burden in the receptacle behind the single seat.
The next morning he awakened to find that several of the company had departed. No one made any comment on that fact and there was no mention of the stolen horse. But when the deputy had downed his last cup of coffee Frank McLowery took him outside and showed him the animal tethered to a hitching-rack. "Much obliged, Frank," said Breckenbridge. The stage-robber gave him a sour grin.
When he found himself upon the silent shore of the prairie he turned about with the intention of going straight back, but he was three times delayed, first at the hitching-rack in front of "Hart's General Store," where a knot of story-tellers halted him to tell him about the phenomenal good time of his herder, and again in front of the post-office, where another group of loiterers had to be listened to; and finally, having made his escape when he felt that it was high time to go, he had the bad luck to run into Judge Tillotson, whose propensity to talk was such that he could not be denied a hearing without good excuse.
"You'll kind of run into him natural, won't you, Duke, and not let him think I tipped you off?" "Just as natural as the wind." Lambert went out. From the hitching-rack he saw Wood at his post of vigil in the door, watching the road with anxious mien. It was a Saturday night; the town was full of visitors.
True, there were many proofs visible of the wild riot of the evening before torn papers, emptied bottles, a shattered sign or two, an oil-lamp blown into bits by some well-directed shot, a bat lying in the middle of the road, and a dejected pony or two, still at the hitching-rack, waiting a delayed rider.
At that very instant a stranger drove up to the hitching-rack, bringing his sweat-covered horse to a standstill so abruptly in front of the marshal's nose that that dignitary's hat fell off backward. "Whoa!" came clearly and unmistakably from the lips of the stranger who held the reins.
As Hargus and Grace advanced, coming in the haste and heat of indignation that Kerr's humiliating situation inflamed, two men left the saloon. They stopped at the hitching-rack as if debating whether to take their horses, and so stood, watching the progress of the two who were cutting the long diagonal across the road.
But mind you," said Tom, as the two turned their horses toward the hitching-rack that stood across the street from the post-office, "if you and your friends think it can be done, I say go ahead and good luck to you. And if you make a success of it, as I hope you will, no one will hear from me that I knew a thing about it."
Three or four cowpunchers had been celebrating the declaration of war. In the community was a general feeling that the Utes must be put down once for all. In spite of the alarm many were glad that the unrest had come to an issue at last. Bob and Dud tied their horses to a hitching-rack and climbed the fence into the park. Blister came out of the shadows to meet them.
This bad man from the Pecos had a pretty sorrel pony and the deputy, who was in the place on civil business, happened to notice the animal at the hitching-rack in front of the hotel. "Say," he said to its possessor, who was standing near by, "that's a nice horse; where'd you get him?"
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