Billy wagged a forefinger at Tip. "Why didn't you tell Crafty, you careless child?"

"Crafty knew, all right," Tip stated. "He was just joking with you, I guess."

"I guess so too," drawled Billy Wingo. "I guess so too."

He stood up and started to walk casually toward the door.

"That will be about far enough," said Tip.

Billy's hands fell away from the latch. "If that gun goes off, it'll make a fine mess on the floor."

"You come back and sit on the bed again," directed Tip, the six-shooter trained unwaveringly on the captive's abdomen. "Of course," he added, "you might try the windows. But even if I didn't drill you three times where you live while you were doing it, you can't wiggle through those windows. Your shoulders are too broad and the sashes are too narrow.

That's why we picked this room. Only one in the house with small windows."

"I'd noticed that," said Billy, returning to the bed. "How about a drink, Tip? I'm thirsty."

"Sam will get you a drink," said Tip.

Billy smiled. "Why not you? Can't you trust me with Sam? Think I'll corrupt his morals or something?"

"There's no telling what you'll do, Bill, and as I may have told you once or twice we can't afford to take any chances."

"When am I going to be arrested for rustling one of Sam's horses?"

"Soon after Crafty gets here."

Billy's face a.s.sumed a peevish expression. "Say, look here, Tip, I don't just cotton to the idea of havin' Sam the one to throw down on me and hold me up. I've got my pride, such as it is, and I'd hate for folks to go round blatting that a slow-pulling sport like Sam Larder held me up. Can't you make it yourself, Tip? You've got a reputation.

I dunno that I'd feel so bad about it if it was you."

"Shucks, Bill, you're too sensitive. I'm afraid we'll have to let the scheme go through as it lays. I don't believe in changing any part of a plan once I've started to carry it out."

"There's something in that," admitted Billy. "I'm a li'l superst.i.tious that way myself. Ain't Sam taking a goshawful time to that drink?

Maybe you better step out and look for him."

Tip grinned. "I hear him comin' now."

"Sam," said Billy, when the owner of the house appeared with the drink, "Sam, how about a li'l hot something to eat? I know it's only the shank of the afternoon, but I'm hungry and I probably have a long hard night ahead of me."

"You have, all right," concurred Sam. "All your own fault, too. But I expect you know what's best."

Sam eased his fat self into a chair and began to construct a cigarette.

Billy elevated his eyebrows. "Say. I thought I asked you for something to eat?"

Sam ran his tongue along the side of the cigarette. "I heard you, but I don't cook a thing till supper. That's flat. I been in and out of that kitchen all day, and I've got enough, you bet you."

"You don't have to cook anythin' yourself. Let your cook do it."

"I let him go to town for the day."

"I don't s'pose you could persuade one of your boys to throw a li'l bite together for me, now, could you?"

Sam shook a decided head. "I couldn't, Bill. There ain't a boy on the place. I sent them all down on the Wagonjack to fence off a quicksand."

Billy closed his eyes to conceal the satisfaction in their depths. Not a man on the place! Which was just what he had been working to find out. But the odds were still two to one, and an armed two to a weaponless one at that. When Craft returned, they would be three to one, provided Billy still was a prisoner.

He surveyed his captors through drop-lidded eyes. Sam Larder was looking out of the window. But Tip was on the alert, even as he had been from the beginning. And Billy knew well that Tip would not hesitate to shoot. Most decidedly the future did not look bright and shining. But Billy's was a confident nature.

"What's that?" queried Tip.

"What do--oh, that! Simon says 'thumbs up,' you mean? It doesn't mean anythin' serious, Tip. Just another way of saying, 'Faint heart never won a bet in its life' and 'It's always darkest 'round midnight.'

Don't mind if I take a snooze, do you, Tippy, old boy?"

Billy rolled over on his stomach, rammed his head into the pillow and completely relaxed his body, but, although his breathing soon became deceptively regular, he was far from being asleep. He was thinking as purposefully as ever he had in his life. He had to escape. _He had to_! To permit his enemies to do this thing was intolerable. There was a way out. Every strait, no matter how close and awkward it may be, has its way out.

He built many plans while he lay there. But there was a flaw in each and every one of them. His brain was still feverishly busy when Felix Craft returned about the middle of the afternoon.

As the door opened and Craft entered, Billy sat up. "Have a nice time?" he drawled.

"Went through like clockwork," replied Craft, slumping into a chair beside the table.

"Not even a li'l teeny-weeny hole in you anywhere?" Billy demanded hopefully. "h.e.l.l, I sh.o.r.e had a better opinion of Jerry Fern than that."

"Jerry didn't do any fightin' to-day," said Felix. "Handed over his watch like a major."

"Yeah, Tip said you'd take his watch. Funny you didn't know Jerry Fern was driving this trip when I asked you. Tip knew."

"Oh, I knew all right," Craft said carelessly. "Lord A'mighty, I'm hungry. My stomach is sticking to my backbone closer than a postage stamp to a letter. I ain't had a thing to eat since breakfast. Got any more eggs and ham, Sam?"

"If you want anything to eat, you can cook it yourself," said Sam.

"It's like I told Bill here, I ain't goin' into that kitchen till suppertime."

"That's always the way," grumbled Craft, kicking his chair back. "Here I ride from h.e.l.l to breakfast and back--and I wanna say again that having that hold-up fifteen miles from here was too much of a good thing. Just as well have had it two or three miles away. It wouldn't have made a bit of difference, not a smidgin, by Gawd."

"You know, Felix," defended Tip, "that we had it fifteen miles away so the give-out horse of Bill's would look more natural."

"d.a.m.n his give-out horse," snarled Craft, moving stiffly toward the hall leading to the kitchen. "I wish it had give out before I was born."

"So you found out how rough-gaited the pinto was, did you, Felix?"

Billy observed sweetly. "Do you know, I had an idea you would. Yeah.

You don't ride enough, that's whatsa matter. Stick too close behind your faro box, you do. Y'oughta try the open air and the range more.

Tell you, Felix, I'll gamble you'll do more ridin' and less card playin' in the next sixty days than you ever did in any two months of your life before. In round numbers I'll bet you ride more than six hundred miles in the next two months. Go you a hundred even. The bet payable in Golden Bar sixty days--say any time after the first day of June."

"Humor him, Crafty," suggested Tip, glad of the diversion. "Sometimes they turn real violent."

"Make it five hundred even," said Craft, who was nothing if not commercial.

Billy smiled pityingly. "You poor feller! But you've asked for it.