Meldrum pushed his ugly phiz to the front. "Don't monkey away any time, boys. String him to one of these cottonwoods till he spits out what we want."
"Was it while you was visiting up at Santa Fe you learnt that habit of seeing yore neighbors hanged, Dan?" drawled Dingwell in a voice of gentle irony.
Furious at this cool reference to his penitentiary days, Meldrum kicked their captive in the ribs. Hal Rutherford, his eyes blazing, caught the former convict by the throat.
"Do that again and I'll hang yore hide up to dry." He shook Meldrum as if he were a child, then flung the gasping man away. "I'll show you who's boss of this rodeo, by gum!"
Meldrum had several notches on his gun. He was, too, a rough-and-tumble fighter with his hands. But Hal Rutherford was one man he knew better than to tackle. He fell back, growling threats in his throat.
Meanwhile Dave was making discoveries. One was that the first two men who had attacked him were the gamblers he had driven from the Legal Tender earlier in the evening. The next was that Buck Rutherford was sending the professional tinhorns about their business.
"Git!" ordered the big rancher. "And keep gitting till you've crossed the border. Don't look back any. Jest burn the wind. Adios."
"They meant to gun you, Dave," guessed the owner of the horse ranch. "I reckon they daren't shoot with me loafing there across the road. You kinder disarranged their plans some more by dropping in at their back door. Looks like you'd 'a' rumpled up their hair a few if you hadn't been in such a hurry to make a get-away. Which brings us back to the previous question. The unanimous sense of the meeting is that you come through with some information, Dave. Where is that gunnysack?"
Dave, still sitting on the ground, leaned his back against a tree and grinned amiably at his questioner. "Sounds like you-all been to school to a parrot. You must 'a' quituated after you learned one sentence."
"We're waiting for an answer, Dave."
The cool, steady eyes of Dingwell met the imperious ones of the other man in a long even gaze. "Nothing doing, Hal."
"Even split, Dave. Fifty-fifty."
The sitting man shook his head. "I'll split the reward with you when I get it. The sack goes back to the express company."
"We'll see about that." Rutherford turned to his son and gave brisk orders. "Bring up the horses. We'll get out of here. You ride with me, Jeff. We'll take care of Dingwell. The rest of you scatter. We're going back to the park."
The Rutherfords and their captive followed no main road, but cut across country in a direction where they would be less likely to meet travelers. It was a land of mesquite and prickly pear. The sting of the cactus bit home in the darkness as its claws clutched at the riders winding their slow way through the chaparral.
Gray day was dawning when they crossed the Creosote Flats and were seen by a sheep-herder at a distance. The sun was high in the heavens before they reached the defile which served as a gateway between the foothills and the range beyond. It had passed the meridian by the time they were among the summits where they could look back upon rounded hills numberless as the billows of a sea. Deeper and always deeper they plunged into the maze of cañons which gashed into the saddles between the peaks. Blue-tinted dusk was enveloping the hills as they dropped down through a wooded ravine into Huerfano Park.
"Home soon," Dave suggested cheerfully to his captors. "I sure am hungry enough to eat a government mailsack. A flank steak would make a big hit with me."
Jeff looked at him in the dour, black Rutherford way. "This is no picnic, you'll find."
"Not to you, but it's a great vacation for me. I feel a hundred per cent better since I got up into all this ozone and scenery." Dingwell assured him hardily. "A man ought to take a trip like this every once in a while. It's great for what ails him."
Young Rutherford grunted sulkily. Their prisoner was the coolest customer he had ever met. The man was no fool. He must know he was in peril, but his debonair, smiling insouciance never left him for a moment. He was grit clear through.
––––––––
Chapter XI
Tighe Weaves his Web Tighter
The hooded eyes of Jess Tighe slanted across the table at his visitor. Not humor but mordant irony had given birth to the sardonic smile on his thin, bloodless lips.
"I reckon you'll be glad to know that you've been entertaining an angel unawares, Hal," he jeered. "I've been looking up your handsome young friend, and I can tell you what the 'R.B.' in his hat stands for in case you would be interested to know."
The owner of the horse ranch gave a little nod. "Unload your information, Jess."
Tighe leaned forward for emphasis and bared his teeth. If ever malevolent hate was written on a face it found expression on his now.
"'R.B.' stands for Royal Beaudry."
Rutherford flashed a question at him from startled eyes. He waited for the other man to continue.
"You remember the day we put John Beaudry out of business?" asked Tighe.
"Yes. Go on." Hal Rutherford was not proud of that episode. In the main he had fought fair, even though he had been outside the law. But on the day he had avenged the death of his brother Anson, the feud between him and the sheriff had degenerated to murder. A hundred times since he had wished that he had gone to meet the officer alone.
"He had his kid with him. Afterward they shipped him out of the country to an aunt in Denver. He went to school there. Well, I've had a little sleuthing done."
"And you've found out—?"
"What I've told you."
"How?"
"He said his name was Cherokee Street, but Jeff told me he didn't act like he believed himself. When yore girl remembered there was a street of that name in Denver, Mr. Cherokee Street was plumb rattled. He seen he'd made a break. Well, you saw that snapshot Beulah took of him and me on the porch. I sent it to a detective agency in Denver with orders to find out the name of the man that photo fitted. My idea was for the manager to send a man to the teachers of the high schools, beginning with the school nearest Cherokee Street. He done it. The third schoolmarm took one look at the picture and said the young fellow was Royal Beaudry. She had taught him German two years. That's howcome I to know what that 'R.B.' in the hat stands for."
"Perhaps it is some other Beaudry."
"Take another guess," retorted the cripple scornfully. "Right off when I clapped eyes on him, I knew he reminded me of somebody. I know now who it was."
"But what's he doing up here?" asked the big man.
The hawk eyes of Tighe glittered. "What do you reckon the son of John Beaudry would be doing here?" He answered his own question with bitter animosity. "He's gathering evidence to send Hal Rutherford and Jess Tighe to the penitentiary. That's what he's doing."
Rutherford nodded. "Sure. What else would he be doing if he is a chip of the old block? That's where his father's son ought to put us if he can."
Tighe beat his fist on the table, his face a map of appalling fury and hate. "Let him go to it, then. I've been a cripple seventeen years because Beaudry shot me up. By God! I'll gun his son inside of twenty-four hours. I'll stomp him off'n the map like he was a rattlesnake."
"No," vetoed Rutherford curtly.
"What! What's that you say?" snarled the other.
"I say he'll get a run for his money. If there's any killing to be done, it will be in fair fight."
"What's ailing you?" sneered Tighe. "Getting soft in your upper story? Mean to lie