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Updated: June 7, 2025
It is twenty-nine miles up there to the mine, and it would take all the trucks we've got and two days to bring them down here and take them back. Besides, if we got them down here it would be a week before we could get half of them back up there and at work again." "But why won't they take checks?" Rathburn demanded. "It would be the same proposition," Sautee explained.
During the remainder of the afternoon he hung about the Red Feather and other resorts, but did not see Carlisle. That evening, as he was returning to the hotel, he met Mannix. The deputy looked at him with a scowl in which there was a mixture of curiosity. Rathburn suddenly remembered what Sautee had said about his company being on the outs with the county administration.
His voice trembled as he spoke again: "Hand it over and get out of here. I've had enough trouble with you. I'll take your word for it." But Rathburn was undoing the paper wrappings. Again Sautee made a leap, but this time he met Rathburn's left fist and staggered back, dropping into a chair. Rathburn looked at him coldly.
"You're right," he said crisply. "It's time to start moving, Sautee." He rose, and his right hand moved incredibly fast. Sautee gasped as he looked into the bore of Rathburn's gun. He could hardly realize that Rathburn had drawn. "I fooled the night riders twice," explained Rathburn with a peculiar smile. "First, when I let 'em get the wrong package, an' again when I let 'em get the wrong gun.
Thus he had been driven to obtain a living in the best way he could, and something in the dangerous, uncertain life of the outlaw had appealed to his wild blood. Sautee had said the money in his pocket was a good haul. Why not? He looked again to eastward. Over the big mountain into the timber a circling back a straight cut east He knew he could do it.
The left side of the automobile was toward him when it stopped in the little street below. A man climbed out and walked around in front of the car, and Rathburn grunted in recognition as he made out the familiar form of Sautee, the mine manager. He saw Sautee and another leave the car and walk toward a building at the lower end of the street.
"You haven't any quarrel with him, Carlisle," he said evenly; "your quarrel, if you've got one, is with me. I outguessed you, that's all. You ain't plumb clever, Carlisle. You ought to be in a more genteel business. I just naturally figured out the play an' made Sautee talk, that's all. I ain't the only gent Mannix is wanting there's three of us here!"
The man was regarding him intently, and there seemed to be an amused expression in his eyes. He turned away from Rathburn's gaze. "I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman," said Rathburn agreeably. "That's George Sautee, manager of the Dixie Queen," said the deputy with a shrug. Sautee rose and extended his hand with an affable smile.
Sautee?" he asked as he snapped a match into flame. "I thought you were going to return the money," Sautee said sneeringly. "It looks bad two ways," Rathburn went on as if he hadn't heard the other's comment. "First, if that package the holdups got had contained the money you could have swore it was a put-up job. I'd have had to beat it fast.
Now, do you begin to see daylight?" Sautee wet his dry lips. The figure on the floor stirred. The shouts from below sounded more distinct. Rathburn's gun leaped into his hand. "You better start hoping the shootin' don't begin till we understand each other, Sautee," he said grimly. "We've come to the show-down!"
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