He was the most surprised man in Wyoming, when he felt the cold muzzle of Wade's Colt boring into the nape of his neck and heard the ranchman's stern warning to keep quiet or take the consequences. Sheriff Thomas had earned his right to his "star" by more than one exhibition of nerve, but he was too familiar with gun ethics to argue with the business end of a "45."

"Not a sound!" Outwardly cold as ice, but inwardly afire, Wade shoved the weapon against his victim's neck and marched him to the middle of the room. "I've got the upper hand, Sheriff, and I intend to keep it."

"You're a d.a.m.n fool, Wade." The Sheriff spoke without visible emotion and in a low tone. "You'll go up for this. Don't you realize that...."

"Can it!" snapped Wade, deftly disarming the officer with his free hand.

"Never mind the majesty of the law and all that rot. I thought that all over before I came. Now that I've got you and drawn your teeth, you'll take orders from me. Get my foreman out of that cell and be quick about it!"

There was nothing to do but obey, which Thomas quietly did, although somewhat in fear of what Santry might do when at liberty. When the cell door was unlocked, the old plainsman, in a towering rage at the injustice of his incarceration, seemed inclined to choke his erstwhile jailer.

"None of that, Bill," Wade admonished curtly. "He's only been a tool in this business, although he ought to know better. We'll tie him up and gag him; that's all. Rip up one of those blankets."

"I knew you'd come, boy!" The foreman's joy was almost like that of a big dog at sight of his master. "By the great horned toad, I knew it!"

With his sinewy hands he tore the blanket into strips as easily as though the wool had been paper. "Now for him, drat him!"

Wade stood guard while the helpless Sheriff was trussed up and his mouth stopped by Santry, and if the ranch owner felt any compunction at the sight, he had only to think of his own men as he had seen them the night before, lying on the floor of the ranch house.

"Make a good job of it, Bill," was his only comment.

"You bet!" Santry chuckled as he drew the last of the knots tight.

"That'll hold him for a spell, I reckon. How you feel, Sheruff, purty comfortable?" The flowing end of the gag so hid the officer's features that he could express himself only with his eyes, which he batted furiously. "Course," Santry went on, in mock solicitude, "if I'd thought I mighta put a bit of sugar on that there gag, to remind you of your mammy like, but it ain't no great matter. You can put a double dose in your cawfee when you git loose."

"Come on, Bill!" Wade commanded.

"So long, Sheruff," Santry chuckled.

There was no time to waste in loitering, for at any moment Bat Lewis might arrive and give an alarm which would summon reenforcements from amongst Moran's following. Hurrying Santry ahead of him, Wade swung open the door and they looked out cautiously. No one was in sight, and a couple of minutes later the two men were mounted and on their way out of town.

"By the great horned toad!" Santry exulted, as they left the lights of Crawling Water behind them. "It sure feels good to be out of that there boardin'-house. It wasn't our fault, Gordon, and say, about this here shootin'...."

"I know all about that, Bill," Wade interposed. "The boys told me.

They're waiting for us at the big pine. But your arrest, that's what I want to hear about."

"Well, it was this-a-way," the old man explained. "They sneaked up on the house in the dark and got the drop on us. Right here I rise to remark that never no more will I separate myself from my six-shooter.

More'n one good man has got hisself killed just because his gun wasn't where it oughter be when he needed it. Of course, we put up the best sc.r.a.p we could, but we didn't have no chance, Gordon. The first thing I knew, while I was tusslin' with one feller, somebody fetched me a rap on the head with a pistol-b.u.t.t, an' I went down for the count. Any of the boys shot up?"

Wade described the appearance of the ranch house on the previous night, and Santry swore right manfully.

"What's on the cards now?" he demanded. "How much longer are we goin' to stand for...."

"No longer," Wade declared crisply. "That's why the boys are waiting for us at the pine. We're going to run Moran and his gang off the ranch as soon as we can get there, and then we're going to run them out of the country."

"Whoop-e-e-e-e-e!" The old plainsman's yell of exultation split the night like the yelp of a coyote, and he brought his hand down on Wade's back with a force which made the latter wince. "By the great horned toad, that's talkin! That's the finest news I've heard since my old mammy said to the parson, 'Call him Bill, for short.' Whoop-e-e-e-e!"

Wade's warning to keep still was lost on the wind, for Santry stuck his spurs into his horse's flanks and charged along the trail like an old-time knight. With a grim smile his employer put on speed and followed him.

CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE AT THE RANCH

When Wade and Santry approached the big pine, the waiting men came out from its shadow and rode forward, with the borrowed rifles across their saddle horns.

"All right, boys?" the rancher asked, taking Trowbridge's new rifle, a beautiful weapon, which Lawson handed to him.

"All right, sir," answered Tim Sullivan, adding the "sir" in extenuation of his befuddled condition the night before, while each man gave Santry a silent hand-shake to welcome him home.

Grimly, silently, then, save for the dashing of their horses' hoofs against the loose stones, and an occasional muttered imprecation as a rider lurched in his saddle, the seven men rode rapidly toward the mountains. In numbers, their party was about evenly matched with the enemy, and Wade meant that the advantage of surprise, if possible, should rest with him in order to offset such advantage as Moran might find in the shelter of the house. But, however that might be, each man realized that the die had been cast and that the fight, once begun, would go to a finish.

"I only hope," Santry remarked, as a steep grade forced them to lessen their speed, "I can get my two hands on that cussed tin-horn, Moran.

Him and me has a misunderstandin' to settle, for sure."

"You leave him to me, Bill." Wade spoke vindictively. "He's my meat."

"Well, since you ask it, I'll try, boy. But there's goin' to be some fightin' sure as taxes, and when I get to fightin', I'm liable to go plumb, hog wild. Say, I hope you don't get into no trouble over this here jail business o' mine. That 'ud make me feel bad, Gordon."

"We'll not worry about that now, Bill."

"That's right. Don't worry till you have to, and then shoot instead.

That's been my motto all my born days, and it ain't such durn bad philosophy at that. I wonder"--the old man chuckled to himself--"I wonder if the Sheruff et up most of that there gag before Bat let him loose?"

Wade laughed out loud, and as though in response, an owl hooted somewhere in the timber to their right.

"There's a durned old hoot owl," growled Santry. "I never like to hear them things--they most always mean bad luck."

He rode to the head of the little column, and the rest of the way to the ranch was pa.s.sed in ominous silence. When they finally arrived at the edge of the clearing and cautiously dismounted, everything seemed from the exterior, at least, just as it should be. The night being far gone, the lights were out, and there was no sign of life about the place. Wade wondered if the posse had gone.

"There ain't no use in speculatin'," declared Santry. "They may be asleep, and they may be layin' for us there in the dark. This will take a rise out of 'em anyhow."

At sight of the old fellow, pistol in hand, Wade called to him to wait, but as he spoke Santry fired two quick shots into the air.

There was an immediate commotion in the ranch house. A man inside was heard to curse loudly, while another showed his face for an instant where the moonlight fell across a window. He hastily ducked out of sight, however, when a rifle bullet splintered the gla.s.s just above his head. Presently a gun cracked inside the house and a splash on a rock behind the attackers told them where the shot had struck.

"Whoop-e-e-e-e!" Santry yelled, discharging the four remaining shots in his revolver at the window. "We've got 'em guessin'. They don't know how many we are."

"They were probably asleep," said Wade a bit sharply. "We might have sneaked in and captured the whole crowd without firing a shot. That's what I meant to do before you cut loose."

Santry shook his grizzled head as he loaded his revolver.

"Well, now, that would have been just a mite risky, boy. The way things stand we've still got the advantage, an'...." He broke off to take a snapshot at a man who showed himself at the window for an instant in an effort to get a glimpse of the attacking force. "One!" muttered the old plainsman to himself.

By this time Wade had thrown himself down on his stomach behind a bowlder to Santry's left and was shooting methodically at the door of the house, directly in front of him. He knew that door. It was built of inch lumber and was so located that a bullet, after pa.s.sing through it, would rake the interior of the cabin from end to end. The only way the inmates could keep out of the line of his fire was by hugging the walls on either side, where they would be partially exposed to the leaden hail which Santry and the punchers were directing at the windows.

There was a grim, baleful look on the young man's usually pleasant face, and his eyes held a pitiless gleam. He was shooting straight, shooting to kill, and taking a fierce delight in the act. The blood l.u.s.t was upon him, that primal, instinctive desire for combat in a righteous cause that lies hidden at the very bottom of every strong man's nature. And there came to his mind no possible question of the righteous nature of his cause. He was fighting to regain possession of his own home from the marauders who had invaded it. His enemies had crowded him to the wall, and now they were paying the penalty. Wade worked the lever of his Winchester as though he had no other business in life. A streak of yellow clay mingled with a b.l.o.o.d.y trickle from a bullet scratch on his cheek gave his set features a fairly ferocious expression.