“Come back here. Are you sure you saw the shot fired?”
“I seen the tenderfoot—damn his eyes!—whip up his gun and take a snap shot while he was runnin’ for the door where Calamity stood.”
Nash raised his lantern high, so that the light fell full on the face of Drew. The rancher was more grey than ever.
He said, with almost an appeal in his voice: “Mightn’t it have been one of the other boys, shooting at random?”
The tone of Kilrain raised and grew ugly.
“Are you tryin’ to cover the tenderfoot, Drew?”
The big man made a fierce gesture.
“Why should I cover him?”
“Because you been actin’ damned queer,” answered Nash.
“Ah, you’re here again, Nash? I know you hate Bard because he was too much for you.”
“He got the start of me, but I’ll do a lot of finishing.”
“Kilrain,” called Drew, “you’re Calamity’s best friend. Ride for Eldara and bring back Dr. Young. Quick! We’re going to pull Ben through.”
“Jest a waste of time,” said Nash coolly. “He’s got one foot in hell already.”
“You’ve said too much, Nash. Kilrain, are you going?”
“I’ll stop for the doctor at Eldara, but then I’ll keep on riding.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothin’.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Nash, and turned with the other.
“Stop!” called Drew. “Boys, I know what you have planned; but let the law take care of this. Remember that we were the aggressors against young Bard. He came peaceably into this house and I tried to hold him here. What would you have done in his place?”
“They’s a dozen men know how peaceable he is,” said Nash drily. “Wherever he’s gone on the range he’s raised hell. He’s cut out for a killer, and Glendin in Eldara knows it.”
“I’ll talk to Glendin. In the meantime you fellows keep your hands off Bard. In the first place because if you take the law into your own hands you’ll have me against you—understand?”
Kilrain and Nash glowered at him a moment, and then backed through the door.
As they hurried for the barn Kilrain asked: “What makes the chief act soft to that hell-raiser?”
“If you have a feller cut out for your own meat,” answered Nash, “d’you want to have any one else step in and take your meal away?”
“But you and me, Steve, we’ll get this bird.”
“We’ll get Glendin behind us first.”
“Why him?”
“Play safe. Glendin can swear us in as deputies to—’apprehend,’ as he calls it, this Bard. Apprehendin’ a feller like Bard simply means to shoot him down and ask him to come along afterward, see?”
“Nash, you got a great head. You ought to be one of these lawyers. There ain’t nothin’ you can’t find a way out of. But will Glendin do it?”
“He’ll do what I ask him to do.”
“Friend of yours?”
“Better’n a friend.”
“Got something on him?”
“These here questions, they ain’t polite, Shorty,” grinned Nash.
“All right. You do the leadin’ in this game and I’ll jest follow suit. But lay your course with nothin’ but the tops’ls flyin’, because I’ve got an idea we’re goin’ to hit a hell of a storm before we get back to port, Steve.”
“For my part,” answered Nash, “I’m gettin’ used to rough weather.”
They saddled their horses and cut across the hills straight for Eldara. Kilrain spurred viciously, and the roan had hard work keeping up.
“Hold in,” called Nash after a time. “Save your hoss, Shorty. This ain’t no short trail. D’you notice the hosses when we was in the barn?”
“Nope.”
“Bard took Duffy’s grey, and the grey can go like the devil. Hoss-liftin’? That’s another little mark on Bard’s score.”
CHAPTER XXXII
TO “APPREHEND” A MAN
As if to make up for its silence of the blast when the two reached it late the night before, Eldara was going full that evening. Kilrain went straight for Doc Young, to bring him later to join Nash at the house of Deputy Glendin.
The front of the deputy’s house was utterly dark, but Nash, unabashed, knocked loudly on the door, and went immediately to the rear of the place. He was in time to see a light wink out at an upper window of the two-story shack. He slipped back, chuckling, among the trees, and waited until the back door slammed and a dark figure ran noiselessly down the steps and out into the night. Then he returned, still chuckling, to the front of the house, and banged again on the door.
A window above him raised at length and a drawling voice, apparently overcome with sleep, called down: “What’s up in Eldara?”
Nash answered: “Everything’s wrong. Deputy Glendin, he sits up in a back room playin’ poker and hittin’ the redeye. No wonder Eldara’s goin’ to hell!”
A muffled cursing rolled down to the cowpuncher, and then a sharp challenge: “Who’s there?”
“Nash, you blockhead!”
“Nash!” cried a relieved voice, “come in; confound you. I thought—no matter what I thought. Come in!”
Nash opened the door and went up the stairs. The deputy met him, clad in a bathrobe and carrying a lamp. Under the bathrobe he was fully dressed.
“Thought your game was called, eh?” grinned the cattleman.
“Sure. I had a tidy little thing in black-jack running and was pulling in the iron boys, one after another. Why didn’t you tip me off? You could have sat in with us.”
“Nope; I’m here on business.”
“Let’s have it.”
He led the way into a back room and placed the lamp on a table littered with cards and a black bottle looming in the centre.
“Drink?”
“Nope. I said I came on business.”
“What kind?”
“Bard.”
“I thought so.”
“I want a posse.”
“What’s he done?”
“Killed Calamity Ben at Drew’s place, started a fire that near burned the house, and lifted Duffy’s hoss.”
Glendin whistled softly.
“Nice little start.”
“Sure, and it’s just a beginnin’ for this Bard.”
“I’ll go out to Drew’s place and see what he’s done.”
“And then start after him with a gang?”
“Sure.”
“By that time he’ll be a thousand miles away.”
“Well?”
“I’m