“I have no preparations to make.”
“Coming to me simply as y'u are? Good! We'll lead the simple life.”
Nora, as it chanced, knocked and entered at his moment. The sight of her vivid good looks truck him for the first time. At sight of him she stopped, gazing with parted lips, a double row of pearls shining through.
He turned swiftly to the mistress. “Y'u ought not to be alone there among so many men. It wouldn't be proper. We'll take the girl along with us.”
“Where?” Nora's parted lips emitted.
“To Arden, my dear.” He interrupted himself to look at his watch. “I wonder why that fellow doesn't come with the horses. They should pass this window.”
Bannister, standing jauntily with his feet astride as he looked out of the window, heard someone enter the room. “Did y'u bring round the horses?” he snapped, without looking round.
“NO, WE ALLOWED THEY WOULDN'T BE NEEDED.”
At sound of the slow drawl the outlaw wheeled like a flash, his hand traveling to the hilt of the revolver that hung on his hip. But he was too late. Already two revolvers covered him, and he knew that both his cousin and McWilliams were dead shots. He flashed one venomous look at the mistress of the ranch.
“Y'u fooled me again. That lamp business was a signal, and I was too thick-haided to see it. My compliments to y'u, Miss Messiter.”
“Y'u are under arrest,” announced his cousin.
“Y'u don't say.” His voice was full of sarcastic admiration. “And you done it with your little gun! My, what a wonder y'u are!”
“Take your hand from the butt of that gun. Y'u better relieve him of it, Mac. He's got such a restless disposition he might commit suicide by reaching for it.”
“What do y'u think you're going to do with me now y'u have got me, Cousin Ned?”
“We're going to turn y'u over to the United States Government.”
“Guess again. I have a thing, or two to say to that.”
“You're going to Gimlet Butte with us, alive or dead.”
The outlaw intentionally misunderstood. “If I've got to take y'u, then we'll say y'u go dead rather than alive.”
“He was going to take Nora and me with him,” Helen explained to her friends.
Instantly the man swung round on her. “But now I've changed my mind, ma'am. I'm going to take my cousin with me instead of y'u ladies.”
Helen caught his meaning first, and flashed it whitely to her lover. It dawned on him more slowly.
“I see y'u remember, Miss Messiter,” he continued, with a cruel, silken laugh. “He gave me his parole to go with me whenever I said the word. I'm saying it now.” He sat down astride a chair, put his chin on the back cross-bar, and grinned malevolently from one to another.
“What's come over this happy family? It don't look so joyous all of a sudden. Y'u don't need to worry, ma'am, I'll send him back to y'u all right—alive or dead. With his shield or on it, y'u know. Ha! ha!”
“You will not go with him?” It was wrung from Helen as a low cry, and struck her lover's heart.
“I must,” he answered. “I gave him my word, y'u remember.”
“But why keep it? You know what he is, how absolutely devoid of honor.”
“That is not quite the question, is it?” he smiled.
“Would he keep his word to you?”
“Not if a lie would do as well. But that isn't the point, either.”
“It's quixotic—foolish—worse than that—ridiculous,” she implored.
“Perhaps, but the fact remains that I am pledged.”
“'I could not love thee, dear, so much
Loved I not honor more,'”
murmured the villain in the chair, apparently to the ceiling. “Dear Ned, he always was the soul of honor. I'll have those lines carved on his tombstone.”
“You see! He is already bragging that he means to kill you,” said the girl.
“I shall go armed,” the sheepman answered.
“Yes, but he will take you into the mountain fastnesses, where the men that serve him will do his bidding. What is one man among so many?”
“Two men, ma'am,” corrected the foreman.
“What's that?” The outlaw broke off the snatch of opera he was singing to slew his head round at McWilliams.
“I said two. Any objections, seh?”
“Yes. That wasn't in the contract.”
“We're giving y'u surplusage, that's all. Y'u wanted one of us, and y'u get two. We don't charge anything for the extra weight,” grinned Mac.
“Oh, Mac, will you go with him?” cried Helen, with shining eyes.
“Those are my present intentions, Miss Helen,” laughed her foreman.
Whereat Nora emerged from the background and flung herself on him. “Y'u can't go, Jim! I won't have you go!” she cried.
The young man blushed a beautiful pink, and accepted gladly this overt evidence of a reconciliation. “It's all right, honey. Don't y'u think two big, grown-up men are good to handle that scalawag? Sho! Don't y'u worry.”
“Miss Nora can come, too, if she likes,” suggested he of the Shoshones. “Looks like we would have quite a party. Won't y'u join us, too, Miss Messiter, according to the original plan?” he said, extending an ironical invitation.
“I think we had better cut it down to me alone. We'll not burden your hospitality, sir,” said the sheepman.
“No, sir, I'm in on this. Whyfor can't I go?” demanded Jim.
Bannister, the outlaw, eyed him unpleasantly. “Y'u certainly can so far as I am concerned. I owe y'u one, too, Mr. McWilliams. Only if y'u come of your own free will, as y'u are surely welcome to do, don't holler if y'u're not so welcome to leave whenever y'u take a notion.”
“I'll try and look out for that. It's settled, then, that we ride together. When do y'u want to start?”
“We can't go any sooner than right now. I hate to take these young men from y'u, lady, but, as I said, I'll send them back in good shape. Adios, senorita. Don't forget to whom y'u belong.” He swaggered to the door and turned, leaning against the jamb with one hand again it. “I expect y'u can say those lovey-dov good-byes without my help. I'm going into the yard. If y'u want to y'u can plug me in the back through the window,” he suggested, with a sneer.
“As y'u would us under similar circumstances,” retorted his cousin.
“Be with y'u in five minutes,” said the foreman.
“Don't hurry. It's a long good-bye y'u're saying,” returned his enemy placidly.
Nora and the young man who belonged to her followed him from the room, leaving Bannister and his hostess alone.
“Shall I ever see you again?” Helen murmured.
“I think so,” the sheepman answered. “The truth is that this opportunity falls pat. Jim and have been wanting to meet those men who are under my cousin's influence and have a talk with them. There is no question but that the gang is disintegrating, and I believe that if we offer to mediate between its members and the Government something might be done to stop the outrages that have been terrorizing this country. My cousin can't be reached, but I believe the rest of them, or, at least a part, can be induced either to surrender or to flee the country.