Her question stopped him. What could he do if she wanted to give him up?

If he made a move toward her she would scream, and that would bring his enemies upon him. He could shoot her afterward, but that would do no good. His account was heavy enough as it stood without piling up surplusage.

"You aimin' for to sell me out?" he asked hoarsely.

"No. I won't be responsible for your death." June might have added another reason, a more potent one. She knew Jake Houck, what a game and desperate villain he was. They could not capture him alive. It was not likely he could be killed without one or two men at least being shot by him. Driven into a corner, he would fight like a wild wolf.

"Tha's the way to talk, June. Help me outa this hole. You can if you're a mind to. Have they got patrols out everywhere?"

"Only on the river side of the town. They think you escaped that way."

"Well, if you'll get me a horse--"

"I'll not do it." She reflected a moment, thinking out the situation. "If you can reach the foothills you'll have a chance."

He grinned, wolfishly. "I'll reach 'em. You can gamble on that, if I have to drop a coupla guys like I did this mornin'."

That was just the trouble. If any one interfered with him, or even recognized him, he would shoot instantly. He would be a deadly menace until he was out of Bear Cat.

"I'll go with you," June said impulsively.

"Go with me?" he repeated.

"Across the park. If they see me with you, nobody'll pay any attention to you. Pull your hat down over your eyes."

He did as she told him.

"Better leave your guns here. If anyone sees them--"

"Nothin' doing. My guns go right with me. What are you trying to pull off?" He shot a lowering, suspicious look at her.

"Keep them under your coat, then. We don't want folks looking at us too curiously. We'll stroll along as if we were interested in our talk. When we meet any one, if we do, you can look down at me. That'll hide your face."

"You going with me clear to the edge of town?"

"No. Just across the square, where it's light an' there are liable to be people. You'll have to look out for yourself after that. It's not more than two hundred yards to the sagebrush."

"I'm ready whenever you are," he said.

June put on her shoes and did up her hair.

She made him wait there while she scouted to make sure nobody was in the corridor outside the room.

They passed out of the back door of the hotel.

Chung met them. He grunted "Glood-eveling" with a grin at June, but he did not glance twice at her companion.

The two passed across a vacant lot and into the park. They saw one or two people--a woman with a basket of eggs, a barefoot boy returning home from after-supper play. June carried the burden of the talk because she was quicker-witted than Houck. Its purpose was to deceive anybody who might happen to be looking at them.

It chanced that some one _was_ looking at them. He was a young man who had been lying on the grass stargazing. They passed close to him and he recognized June by her walk. That was not what brought him to his feet a moment later with a gasp of amazement. He had recognized her companion, too, or he thought he had. It was not credible, of course. He must be mistaken. And yet--if that was not Jake Houck's straddling slouch his eyes were playing tricks. The fellow limped, too, just a trifle, as he had heard the Brown's Park man did from the effects of his wounds in the Ute campaign.

But how could Houck be with June, strolling across the park in intimate talk with her, leaning toward her in that confidential, lover-like attitude--Jake Houck, who had robbed the bank a few hours earlier and was being hunted up and down the river by armed posses ready to shoot him like a wolf? June was a good hater. She had no use whatever for this fellow. Why, then, would she be with him, laughing lightly and talking with animation?

Bob followed them, as noiselessly as possible. And momentarily the conviction grew in him that this was Houck. It was puzzling, but he could not escape the conclusion. There was a trick in the fellow's stride, a peculiarity of the swinging shoulders that made for identification of the man.

If he could have heard the talk between them, Bob would have better understood the situation.

Ever since that memorable evening when Bear Cat had driven him away in disgrace, Houck had let loose the worse impulses of his nature. He had gone bad, to use the phrase of the West. Something in him had snapped that hitherto had made him value the opinions of men. In the old days he had been a rustler and worse, but no crime had ever been proved against him. He could hold his head up, and he did. But the shock to his pride and self-esteem that night had produced in him a species of disintegration. He had drunk heavily and almost constantly. It had been during the sour temper following such a bout that he had quarreled with and shot the Ute. From that hour his declension had been swift. How far he had gone was shown by the way he had taken Dillon's great service to him. The thing rankled in his mind, filled him with surging rage whenever he thought of it. He hated the young fellow more than ever.

But as he walked with June, slender, light-swinging, warm with young, sensuous life, the sultry passion of the man mounted to his brain and overpowered caution. His vanity whispered to him. No woman saved a man from death unless she loved him. She might give other reasons, but that one only counted. It was easy for him to persuade himself that she always had been fond of him at heart. There had been moments when the quality of her opposition to him had taken on the color of adventure.

"I'll leave you at the corner," she said. "Go back of that house and through the barbed-wire fence. You'll be in the sage then."

"Come with me to the fence," he whispered. "I got something to tell you."

She looked at him, sharply, coldly. "You've got nothing to tell me that I want to hear. I'm not doing this for you, but to save the lives of my friends. Understand that."

They were for the moment in the shadow of a great cottonwood. Houck stopped, devouring her with his hungry eyes. Bad as the man was, he had the human craving of his sex. The slim grace of her, the fundamental courage, the lift of the oval chin, touched a chord that went vibrating through him. He snatched her to him, crushing his kisses upon the disturbing mouth, upon the color spots that warmed her cheeks.

She was too smothered to cry out at first. Later, she repressed the impulse. With all her strength she fought to push him from her.

A step sounded, a cry, the sound of a smashing blow going home. Houck staggered back. He reached for a revolver.

June heard herself scream. A shot rang out. The man who had rescued her crumpled up and went down. In that horrified moment she knew he was Bob Dillon.

CHAPTER XLIII

NOT EVEN POWDER-BURNT

Houck stood over the prostrate man, the smoking revolver in his hand, on his lips a cruel twist and in his throat a wolfish snarl.

June, watching him with eyes held in a fascination of terror, felt that at any moment he might begin pumping shots into the supine body. She shook off the palsy that held her and almost hurled her soft young body at him.

"Don't!" she begged. "Don't!" Cold fingers clutched at his wrist, dragged down the barrel of the forty-five.

"He had it comin'. He was askin' for it," the outlaw said. He spoke huskily, still looking down at the crumpled figure.

The girl felt in him the slackness of indecision. Should he shoot again and make sure? Or let the thing go as it was? In an instant he would have made up his mind.

She spoke quickly, words tumbling out pell-mell. "You must hurry--hurry!

When they heard that shot--Listen! There's some one coming. Oh, run, run!"

Her staccato warning deflected his mind from the course toward which it might have turned. He held up his head, listening. The slap of footsteps on a board walk could be plainly heard. A voice lifted itself in question into the night. The door of Dolan's opened and let out a fan-shaped shaft of light. The figures of men could be seen as they surged across the lit space into the darkness. June had spoken the truth. He must hurry if he was to escape. To shoot again now would be to advertise the spot where he was.

He wrenched his arm from her fingers and ran. He moved as awkwardly as a bear, but he covered ground swiftly. In a few seconds the night had swallowed him.