Still jarred by the blow, Fox looked up with a ludicrous expression on his fat face. His mind was not yet adjusted to what had taken place.

"I told you to keep the brute away," he complained querulously. "Now, see what you've done."

Dave grinned. "Looks like I spilled your apple cart. No, don't bother about that gun. I'll take care of it for you. Much obliged."

Chet's face registered complex emotion. Incredulity struggled with resentment. "You made that horse buck on purpose," he charged.

"You're certainly a wiz, Chet," drawled the cattleman.

"And that business of being sore at yourself and ashamed was all a bluff. You were laying back to trick me," went on Fox venomously.

"How did you guess it? Well, don't you care. We're born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. As for man, his days are as gra.s.s. He diggeth a pit and falleth into it his own self. Likewise he digs a hole and buries gold, but beholds another guy finds it. See, Second Ananias, fourteen, twelve."

"That's how you show your grat.i.tude, is it? I might 'a' shot you safe and comfortable from the mesquite and saved a lot of trouble."

"I don't wonder you're disgusted, Chet. But be an optimist. I might 'a' busted you high and wide with that quirt instead of giving you a nice little easy tap that just did the business. There's no manner of use being regretful over past mistakes," Dave told him cheerfully.

"It's easy enough for you to say that," groaned Fox, his hand to an aching head. "But I didn't lambaste you one on the nut. Anyhow, you've won out."

"I had won out all the time, only I hadn't pulled it off yet," Dingwell explained with a grin. "You didn't think I was going up to the horse ranch with you meek and humble, did you? But we can talk while we ride. I got to hustle back to Battle b.u.t.te and turn in this sack to the sheriff so as I can claim the reward. Hate to trouble you, Chet, but I'll have to ask you to transfer that gunnysack back to Teddy.

He's through bucking for to-day, I shouldn't wonder."

Sourly Fox did as he was told. Then, still under orders, he mounted his own horse and rode back with his former prisoner to the park.

Dingwell gathered up the rifle and revolver that had been left at the edge of the aspen grove and headed the horses for Battle b.u.t.te.

"We'll move lively, Chet," he said. "It will be night first thing we know."

Chet Fox was no fool. He could see how carefully Dingwell had built up the situation for his coup, and he began at once laying the groundwork for his own escape. There was in his mind no intention of trying to recover the gold himself, but if he could get away in time to let the Rutherfords know the situation, he knew that Dave would have an uneasy life of it.

"'Course I was joking about shooting you up from the mesquite, Dave,"

he explained as the horses climbed the trail from the park. "I ain't got a thing against you--nothing a-tall. Besides, I'm a law-abiding citizen. I don't hold with this here gunman business. I never was a killer, and I don't aim to begin now."

"Sure, I know how tender-hearted you are, Chet. I'm that way, too.

I'm awful sorry for myself when I get in trouble. That's why I tapped you on the cocoanut with the end of my quirt. That's why I'd let you have about three bullets from old Tried and True here right in the back if you tried to make your getaway. But, as you say, I haven't a thing against you. I'll promise you one of the nicest funerals Washington County ever had."

The little man laughed feebly. "You will have your joke, Dave, but I know mighty well you wouldn't shoot me. You got no legal right to detain me."

"I'd have to wrastle that out with the coroner afterward, I expect,"

replied Dingwell casually. "Not thinking of leaving me, are you?"

"Oh, no! No. Not at all. I was just kinder talking."

It was seven miles from Lonesome Park to Battle b.u.t.te. Fox kept up a kind of ingratiating whine whenever the road was so rough that the horses had to fall into a walk. He was not sure whether when it came to the pinch he could summon nerve to try a bolt, but he laid himself out to establish friendly relations. Dingwell, reading him like a primer, c.o.c.ked a merry eye at the man and grinned.

About a mile from Battle b.u.t.te they caught up with another rider, a young woman of perhaps twenty. The dark, handsome face that turned to see who was coming would have been a very attractive one except for its look of sulky rebellion. From the mop of black hair tendrils had escaped and brushed the wet cheeks flushed by the sting of the rain.

The girl rode splendidly. Even the slicker that she wore could not disguise the flat back and the erect carriage of the slender body.

Dingwell lifted his hat. "Good-evenin', Miss Rutherford."

She nodded curtly. Her intelligent eyes pa.s.sed from his to those of Fox. A question and an answer, neither of them in words, flashed forth and back between Beulah Rutherford and the little man.

Dave took a hand in the line-up as they fell into place beside each other. "Hold on, Fox. You keep to the left of the road. I'll ride next you with Miss Rutherford on my right." He explained to the girl with genial mockery his reason. "Chet and I are such _tillic.u.ms_ we hate to let any one get between us."

Bluntly the girl spoke out, "What's the matter?"

The cattleman lifted his eyebrows in amused surprise. "Why, nothing at all, I reckon. There's nothing the matter, is there, Chet?"

"I've got an engagement to meet your father and he won't let me go,"

blurted out Fox.

"When did you make that hurry-up appointment, Chet?" laughed Dingwell.

"You didn't seem in no manner of hurry when you was lying in the mesquite back there at Lonesome Park."

"You've got no business to keep him here. He can go if he wants to,"

flashed the young woman.

"You hear that, Chet. You can go if you want to," murmured Dave with good-natured irony.

"Said he'd shoot me in the back if I hit the trail any faster," Fox snorted to the girl.

"He wouldn't dare," flamed Beulah Rutherford.

Her sultry eyes attacked Dingwell.

He smiled, not a whit disturbed. "You see how it is, Chet. Maybe I will; maybe I won't. Be a sport and you'll find out."

For a minute the three rode in silence except for the sound of the horses moving. Beulah did not fully understand the situation, but it was clear to her that somehow Dingwell was interfering with a plan of her people. Her untamed youth resented the high-handed way in which he seemed to be doing it. What right had he to hold Chet Fox a prisoner at the point of a rifle?

She asked a question flatly. "Have you got a warrant for Chet's arrest?"

"Only old Tried and True here." Dave patted the barrel of his weapon.

"You're not a deputy sheriff?"

"No-o. Not officially."

"What has Chet done?"

Dingwell regarded the other man humorously. "What have you done, Chet?

You must 'a' broke some ordinance in that long career of disrespectability of yours. I reckon we'll put it that you obstructed traffic at Lonesome Park."

Miss Rutherford said no more. The rain had given way to a gentle mist.

Presently she took off her slicker and held it on the left side of the saddle to fold. The cattleman leaned toward her to lend a hand.

"Lemme roll it up," he said.

"No, I can."