He stood quietly in the doorway between the office and the cages. The man from the desert studied him. He saw a variety of expressions flit over Rathburn's face--anger, determination, scorn, resolve. He was deliberately ignoring his opportunity to make his escape while conditions were propitious; he was waiting!

Although the jailer felt the urge to cry out in an endeavor to make himself heard outside the jail and thus bring help, something in the bearing of the man standing in the doorway made him keenly curious to watch the drama which he knew must be enacted sooner or later before his eyes, for The Coyote was certainly waiting for the sheriff.

Rathburn now drew the jailer's gun from his own holster and toyed with it to get its "feel" and balance. He dropped it back into the holster and in a wink of an eyelid it was back in his hand. The man from the desert gasped at the lightning rapidity of the draw. Time and again the gun virtually leaped from the holster into The Coyote's hand at his hip, ready to spit forth leaden death. The jailer drew a long breath. The man was accustoming himself to the weapon which had come into his possession, making sure of it. Now he again stood motionless in the doorway, waiting--waiting----

Boots stamped upon the steps outside, and Rathburn drew back from the doorway in the aisle before the cages.

The front door opened and a man entered.

Both the man in the cage and the man in the aisle recognized the sheriff's step as Neal closed the door, paused for a look about the office, and then walked toward the door leading into the jail proper.

The jailer opened his mouth to sound a warning, but something in Rathburn's gaze and posture held him silent. Rathburn's body was tense; his gaze was glued to the doorway; his right hand with its slim, brown, tapered fingers, hung above the gun at his side.

The sheriff loomed in the doorway. Without a flicker of surprise in his eyes he took in the situation. His lids half closed as his lips tightened to a thin, white line. He met Rathburn's gaze and knew that he now faced The Coyote in the role which had won him his sinister reputation.

"Did I mention to you that I wasn't used to jails, sheriff?" said Rathburn evenly, his words carrying crisp and clear. "I don't fancy 'em. But I needed the sleep and the meal. Now I'm going. Do you recollect I said no one ever took my gun from me but what I got it back? I had to borrow this one from the gent in the cage. I'll take my gun, sheriff--_now!_"

Neal had watched him closely. He saw that while he was speaking The Coyote did not for an instant relax his vigilance. The merest resemblance of a move would precipitate gun play.

He turned abruptly, and with Rathburn following him closely, went into the private room off the jail office. He pointed to the other's gun which lay upon the flat desk where many had curiously inspected it.

Rathburn took it in his left hand and ascertained at a glance that it wasn't loaded. Therefore he elected to carry it in his left hand.

"I won't take a chance on feeding it right now, sheriff," he said.

"Under the circ.u.mstances it would be right awkward. If you make up your mind to draw I'll have to depend on a strange gun."

Sheriff Neal's eyes glittered; his lips parted just a little.

"Now if you'll walk back toward the cage, sheriff," Rathburn prompted.

"Correct--don't stumble."

Neal backed slowly out of the door, through the second door into the aisle before the cages, watching Rathburn like a cat.

Rathburn slipped his own weapon into his left hip pocket and with his left hand dug into his trousers pocket for the key to the cage. He didn't take his eyes from Neal's as he brought it out and inserted it in the lock. His right hand continued to hang above the gun he had taken from the jailer.

"Sheriff," he said with a cold ring in his voice, "this may seem like an insult, but I'm goin' to ask you to unlock that cage and go in. You can take your time if you want, but I warn you fair that if any one should start coming up the steps outside I'll try to smoke you up."

For answer Neal, with the glitter still in his eyes, stepped to the cage door, unlocked it, and swung it open.

He took a step, whirled like a flash--and the deafening report of guns crashed and reverberated within the jail's walls.

Neal staggered back within the cage, his gun clattering to the floor, his right hand dropping to his side.

"If I hadn't been up against a strange gun I wouldn't have hit your finger, sheriff," said Rathburn mockingly. "I was shootin' at your gun."

He shut the cage door quickly, locked it, and stuck the key in his pocket. Then he threw the jailer's gun in through the bars and thrust his own weapon in its holster.

"I want you gentlemen inside, an' armed," he said laughingly. "If the jailer will be so good as to read what's written on the paper on the bench, he'll learn something to his advantage. Sheriff, you an' Brown were wrong in this, but the devil of it is you'll never know why."

He left Neal pondering this cryptic sally, ran to the front door, opened it, and disappeared.

Neal clutched his injured fingers and swore freely, although there was amazement in his eyes. He could have been killed like a rat in a trap if The Coyote had felt the whim.

The man from the desert stepped to the bench and read on the sheet of paper:

If anybody ever gets to read this they will know that what I said about learning to throw a knife is true. I can do it. I've carried that knife in a special case that would fit in my sock and boot for just such an emergency as came up to-night. But I never would have throwed it. It would be against my ethics.

The man from the desert swore softly. Then he hurriedly picked up his gun and fired five shots to attract attention.

CHAPTER XIII

A MAN AND HIS HORSE

When Rathburn closed the outer door after him he plunged down the steps and into the shadows by the wall of the jail. Few lights showed in the town, for it was past midnight. He could see yellow beams streaming from the windows of the resort up the street, however, as he hesitated.

He was mightily handicapped because he had no horse. A horse--his own horse, he felt--was necessary for his escape, but his horse was a long distance away.

Rathburn stole across the street to the side on which the big resort was situated, and slipped behind a building just as the m.u.f.fled reports came from within the jail. After a short interval, five more shots were heard, and Rathburn grinned as he realized that the jailer had fired the remaining bullets in his own and the sheriff's guns.

He heard men running down the street. So he hurried up street behind the buildings until he reached the rear of the large resort, which was the place Lamy had held up.

Peering through one of the rear windows he saw the room was deserted except for the man behind the bar. Even at that distance he could hear horses and men down the street. Doubtless they were crowding into the jail where the sheriff would insist upon being liberated at once so he could lead the chase and, as Rathburn had the key, this would result in a delay until another key could be found, or Brown, who probably had one, could be routed out.

Rathburn thought of this as he looked through the window at the lonely bartender who evidently could not decide whether to close up and see what it all was about or not. But the thing which impressed Rathburn most was the presence of a pile of sandwiches and several cans of corned beef and sardines--emergency quick lunches for patrons--on the back bar. Also, he saw several gunny sacks on a box in the rear of the place almost under the window through which he was looking.

Rathburn stepped to the door in sudden decision, threw it open, and walked in. His gun flashed into his hand. "Quiet!" was all he said to the stupefied bartender.

He scooped up one of the sacks, darted behind the bar, brushed the sandwiches and most of the cans of corned beef and sardines into it, and then slung it over his left shoulder with his left hand.

"The sheriff will return the money that was taken from here," he said coolly as he walked briskly to the front door. "Play the game safe; stay where you are!" he cautioned as he vanished through the door.

There were no horses at the hitching rail, but he saw several down the street in front of the jail. Men were running back and forth across the street--after Brown, he surmised.

Again he stole around to the rear of the resort; then he struck straight up into the timbered slope above the town, climbing rapidly afoot with the distant peaks and ridges as his guide.

Some two hours after dawn he sat on the crest of a high ridge watching a rider come up the winding trail from eastward. He had seen other riders going in both directions from his concealment behind a screen of cedar bushes. He had watched them with no interest other than that exhibited by a whimsical smile. But he did not smile as he watched this rider. His eyes became keenly alert; his face was grim. His mind was made up.

When the rider was nearing his ambush, Rathburn quickly scanned the empty stretch of trail to westward, then leaped down and confronted the horseman.

Ed Lamy drew rein with an exclamation of surprise.

"There's not much time, an' I don't hanker to be seen--afoot," said Rathburn quickly. "Where's my horse?"

"He's in a pocket on a shale slope this side of the timber on a line from the house where you left him," replied Lamy readily. "Or you can have mine."