This being done, he stripped Tip and Sam of their gun belts, gathered up all the guns and ran out into the kitchen. Here, on the floor, Craft had thrown his saddle, bridle and saddle blanket. Bill added the lot to his burden and sped out to the corral. The pinto was there, looking very tired. Bill hastily unstrapped his rope and dropped the loop over a rangy-bodied chestnut with good legs and a mule stripe.

This animal he bridled and saddled, left it standing and ran back to Sam's storeroom for another set of horse equipment. It was his laudable intention to pack the unconscious Felix into town and jail him for the stage-coach robbery. It was a bold plan, but Billy always rather favored the bold plan. The plan had not occurred to him till almost the instant of throwing the pepper so he had had no time to thoroughly mature it, but it seemed to contain more elements of success than any other because it would forestall his enemies' scheme so neatly. With Craft in jail and wearing the clothing worn by the robber, to which clothing the complaisant Jerry Fern and his pa.s.sengers would undoubtedly be prepared to swear, it would be hard indeed, if Bill could not fasten the robbery on him, Craft.

He swore bitterly as he pulled taut the cinch strap of the second horse. Fastening the robbery on Craft was one thing, obtaining his indictment and conviction were decidedly two others. What though Judge Donelson would do his best to see justice done, the doing of said justice would rest in the laps of twelve men, each and every one of them the opposite of good and true. But at least he, Billy Wingo, would not be the victim of an outrageous conspiracy. There was that much gained.

He led the two horses to the kitchen door and went within to fetch out Felix Craft.

It must have been his good angel who caused him to look through the front window. He looked and saw a cloud of hors.e.m.e.n scouring toward the ranch house. Sam's field gla.s.ses were on the shelf above the window. He opened the window, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gla.s.ses and focussed them on the approaching riders. He immediately recognized, to his great disgust, half a dozen of Sam Larder's punchers. Obviously they had completed the fencing-off of the quicksand sooner than expected.

"This," said Billy, dropping the gla.s.ses and leaving the room at speed, "is no place for me."

At the first sight of the riders he had abandoned the plan of taking Felix Craft to town. He would be hard put to escape himself. A burdened led horse was an impossibility, even if he had had time to carry out Craft and tie him to the saddle. The punchers would be at the ranch house in another sixty seconds, and if they should discover him with their bound and unconscious employer and two of his friends, they would shoot first and ask questions later. Any one would,--under the circ.u.mstances.

Billy topped his mount, struck in the spurs and fled. The other horse he perforce left standing.

As he flashed past the corner of the building, one of Larder's punchers raised a yell. Some well-meaning fool fired. Zung-g! the bullet buzzed overhead. Smack! Zung-g! Smack! Several bits of lead either ripped past his ears or tucked into the posts of the corral he was skirting. It was borne in upon him that the Larder employees were mistaking him for a horse thief, or some one worse.

He leaned over his saddle horn and began to ride. From the Larder corral to a clump of trees on the edge of a draw was a long hundred yards. As Billy galloped in among the trees he glanced over his shoulder. The corral concealed the hors.e.m.e.n. He pulled up at the edge of the draw, slid down the bank in a shower of stones and dirt, turned sharp to the left at the bottom and tore ahead. A mile farther on he looked back. No one was in sight yet.

"Ropin' themselves fresh horses," was his muttered verdict. "Damitall, running away was about the worst thing I could have done, after all!

But what else was there to do, I'd like to know? If I'd stayed I'd have been plugged for a holdup and now I'm a heap likely to be lynched for a horse thief and a hold-up both."

He knew what he might expect from the brisk Larder outfit after Sam had given it his careful version of the stage robbery.

"And that goes double for the rest of the county," he said to himself, staring ahead over the flattened ears of his racing horse. "It looks like a cold day for Billy Wingo. I'll have to do some almighty tall hustling, that's a cinch."

Two miles and a half from the clump of trees at the back of Larder's corral he turned his horse and scuffled up the right-hand bank of the draw. At the top he looked back. He could see the clump of trees quite plainly and below it, in the bottom of the draw, were several black beads. He counted four beads. No doubt the remaining beads were spreading out to right and left to head him off.

"Thank Gawd for the mule stripe," he muttered piously, trotting onward.

"We'll diddle 'em yet, old-timer."

Old-timer c.o.c.ked an ear. His muscles were moving rhythmically, his long free stride was steady and collected. His breathing, while audible, showed no catchiness or other sign of distress. He was good for many miles yet, this chestnut with the mule stripe.

"Alla same, I've got to have another horse," Billy decided. "The quicker this feller gets back on the Larder range the better."

He didn't quite know how to get another horse. When he came in town to a.s.sume the duties of his office he brought with him from his ranch two horses besides the red-and-white pinto. His remaining horses he had turned out into the hills, upon whose tops, when the snow flew, they could grub up a living without too much difficulty. These hills lay sixty miles away beyond the Tuckleton range, and every horse on them would be carrying a gra.s.s belly.

"Not one of 'em fit for hard riding right off the reel," he told himself, and cursed a little. "Looks like Sam Prescott was my one best bet."

He came to a stream and rode in it till almost sunset when he left it, dismounted beside a tall cottonwood and shinned to the top. To his earnest satisfaction he saw, hopelessly distant and following utterly wrong lines, the tiny black beads that were his pursuers.

"And that's that," said Billy Wingo, rustling groundward rapidly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WHAT HAZEL THOUGHT

Nate Samson, weighing sugar for Hazel Walton, looked at her sidewise.

"Heard the news, Hazel?"

She removed her gaze from the flyspecked window and stared abstractedly at Nate. "What news?"

Nate swelled his chest with satisfaction. Some people enjoy being the bearers of evil tidings. Besides, Nate had stopped going to see Hazel.

Somehow he had been made to feel that his visits were not the bright spots in her drab existence that he had considered them to be. There was more than a little malice in Nate's make-up. And the news----

"Somebody killed Tip O'Gorman in his own house last night."

Nate's hand pushed the sliding weight several notches along the scale beam. Red Herring, the town marshal, slouching with seeming aimlessness against a showcase at the other end of the counter, covertly watched the girl.

"Somebody killed Tip O'Gorman in his own house last night," said Nate.

Hazel wondered why Nate's eyes never left her face. "Tip O'Gorman! He was one of Uncle Tom's friends. Who did it?"

Nate's eyes were fairly devouring her. The man looked positively pleased. "They don't know yet. But--" He paused.

She waited. What was he goggling and boggling at? "Well?"

"They found Bill Wingo's quirt on the floor beside the body and right inside the door a snakeskin hat-band the whole town knows belongs to Bill."

Hazel's cheeks began to glow. "That doesn't prove anything," she declared in a level voice. "Bill owns three quirts to my knowledge, and he hasn't worn that snake hatband since last July. It began to stretch then and was always working up off the crown, and he couldn't tighten it without ruining the skin, so he stopped wearing it."

"It worked off the crown once too often last night," offered Nate.

Hazel's black eyes were glittering through slitted eyelids. Really, Nate Samson should have been warned.

"You think Bill did it?" asked Hazel Walton.

Nate nodded. "So does everybody else."

This was not strictly true. Billy Wingo had several warm friends.

"At any rate," Nate pursued with relish, "there's a warrant out for Bill."

"Another warrant!" Hazel's hand moved imperceptibly nearer a broad-bladed cheese-knife that lay on the counter.

"Another warrant. You bet another warrant. That makes three counts he's wanted on--stage robbery, rustling that chestnut horse of Sam Larder's and now this murder. I always said Bill Wingo was too good to be true."

Hazel Walton made no further remark. She reached for the cheese-knife.

Nate Samson ducked under the counter. The cheese-knife whirred within an inch of his p.r.i.c.kling scalp and stuck quivering in the edge of a shelf.

"Liar!" announced Hazel in a loud, unsympathetic tone. "I'm only sorry I haven't a gun with me. Talking like that about a man you're not fit to say h.e.l.lo to. Here, I don't want any of this stuff! You can keep it."

So saying, she toppled over her whole pile of wrapped purchases and marched out of the store. The marshal followed her to the door. He returned to his post at the counter a minute later.

"It's all right, Nate," he said. "She's gone over to the other store."

Nate Samson emerged slowly. His pouchy cheeks were pale with fear.