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"But I ain't never sneaked any miners' pay-rolls, Carlisle," Rathburn broke in with a sneering inflection in his voice. "What'd you do with Mike Reynolds? He was with you last night, wasn't he?" Carlisle's jaw snapped shut. He swung on Rathburn with eyes darting red. Then his gaze flashed to the cringing Sautee. "You you rat " Rathburn stepped before Sautee.
I didn't figure it would do any good to tell Mannix I'd taken in the show, an' I was on my way to the desert. I'd be there now if Carlisle hadn't overstepped the mark in that Red Feather place." Sautee pricked up his ears. "You let them arrest you," he said. "Why " "Because I knew Mannix didn't know who I was an' didn't have anything on me," said Rathburn quickly.
Disregarding the sounds which continued to come from below, Rathburn stood, gun in hand, regarding Sautee with a grim countenance and a cold look in his keen, gray eyes. "I saw that truck driver held up, Sautee. I was on a ridge below the divide. I saw the tall man in the black slicker, his pardner, an' the boy.
"This is one of them, and I carry the second key. Here!" He held out the key ring with one key extended. Rathburn thrust his gun back into its holster and took the keys. In a moment he had unlocked the padlock and swung open the iron door, exposing case after case of high explosive within the stone structure. Sautee was staring at him in dire apprehension.
He gave his order with a nod and a mild flourish of the hand, indicating that he would take the same. "Oh waiter," called Rathburn. "Four eggs with mine." Sautee laughed. It was a peculiar laugh in that it seemed to convey little mirth. It was perfunctory. He gazed at Rathburn quizzically. "They tell me you're a gunman," he said in a low voice. Rathburn's brows shot up. "They? Who's they?"
The news that The Coyote and Rathburn were one and the same, and that he had robbed the mining company that night and was probably responsible for the other holdups, created an immediate sensation among the few gamblers in the resort. Sautee added to the excitement by quoting rewards at random, and the forming of two posses to comb the trails to the mine and beyond was under way at once.
It's your chance to make a break, Sautee; but if you try it I'll send a bullet into that cap. Maybe you heard somewhere that I can shoot tolerably well," he concluded in his drawl. Sautee gripped the sides of the boxes piled behind him. Rathburn led the boy outside and said quickly: "Just what is this man Carlisle to you?"
The deadly earnestness and the note of regret in Rathburn's tone caused Sautee to forget his uneasiness temporarily and stare at the man in wonder. Rathburn's eyes were narrowed, his gaze was steel blue, and his face was drawn into hard, grim lines as he looked out upon the far-flung, glorious vista below them, broken here and there by the movement of mounted men.
He didn't make any progress, so I let him go. Since then he's been out and in, gambling, prospecting, anything he's a fast man with his gun, and he has some claims here which he is developing on a small scale and trying to sell." Rathburn nodded but made no comment. "Will you take the job?" Sautee asked anxiously. "What do you want me to do?" "I want you to carry a sum of money to the mine.
There ain't so much chance of a shot bein' heard way up the street; an' there ain't much chance of me bein' caught on that hoss of mine if I don't want to get caught. Also, I'm beginning to feel like I was in a hurry. Fork over that money!" Sautee looked just an instant longer into the eyes of the man towering over him. Then he rose, shaking, dry-lipped, and knelt down by the head of the bed.
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