'Hittin' the bottle, eh?' sneered the first speaker, who was evidently in some authority; and then to the prisoner, 'Where's the dollars?'
Severn drew himself up in drunken dignity and nearly lost his balance.
'Shay, fella, whadye take me for, thinkin' I'd fall for that?' he asked. 'I ain't no ch-child.'
'If yu ain't brought 'em I'll hang the pair o' yu,' snarled the unknown.
Severn leered at him and shook his head. 'Nothin' to that, ol'timer,' he said thickly. 'Whatsa good o' two corpsed cowpunchers? Can't even sell the hides an' t-taller. Listen to m-me. How do I know yu got my m-man? Might be somebody else's fella yu grabbed, see? Yu prove he's m-mine an' I'll write to the r-ranch for the rnoney. One o' yore c-chaps can go for it. What's fairer'n that, huh?'
'Fetch the other fool in,' commanded the leader, disgustedly surveying the smiling, rocking figure before him.
In two minutes Larry, his hands tied behind him, came in and stared in amazement when he saw his foreman peering at him with heavy, blinking eyes.
''S' Larry, shore enough, but why's there two of him?' Severn muttered bemusedly. 'Mus' be twinsh. Betcha they come from the sarne family, anyways. Yessir--' he drew himself up and looked at his audience with owlish gravity. 'I never knew a case o' twinsh with different parents.'
Laughter came from behind the masks; the bandits wereenjoying the spectacle and their vigilance was relaxing. This was what the foreman was playing for. He noted that the man who had brought him in was just behind. His face took on an expression of maudlin concern.
'Twinsh is dangerous to c-community--can't tell t'other from which,' he stated seriously. 'Gotta 'bolish one of 'em.' His hands dropped to his holsters and a look of astonishment came on his face at finding them empty. 'Losht my guns,' he mumbled. ''S' funny.' A roar of raucous merriment greeted the announcement and they saw him suddenly stagger backwards and throw his hands wide in an effort to keep on his feet. In another second he leapt sideways so that every man in the room was in front of him, and the guns he had snatched from the unwary man behind him was /threatening them.
'Reach for the roof, every dam one o' yu,' he ordered. 'As I was sayin', twins is dangerous, an' these guns is twins.'
The drunken cowpuncher with the slurring, tripping tongue had disappeared and, in his stead, was a crouching, alert gunman, with narrowed eyes, a savagely snarling mouth and death in either hand. T' was one man against eight, and all of them had courage of a kind; by a concerted effort they could overwhelm him, but at least one would die swiftly and none of them wanted to be that one. So the command was obeyed.
When this had been done, as it was in quick time, Severn holstered one of his guns, stepped forward and borrowed a knife from the belt of one of the bandins in order to free his friend. The knife having done its work, he added, 'Pull their teeth, get one o' them ropes, an' tie their hands behind 'em.'
With a joyous yelp, Larry came to life and leaped to obey. The guns he flung into the middle of the floor, and cutting a lariat into suitable lengths proceeded to bind the wrists of the captives with an enthusiasm which drew hearty curses from his victims. This done, Severn searched for and found his own revolvers, but had to content himself with another rifle. Then he stepped up to the bandit who had done the talking and jerked the masking handkerchief from his face.
'Just as I reckoned,' he said. 'Yore figure is a trifle uncommon, Mister Shadwell. Step ahead, we're takin' yu with us.'
'Damn yu, I'll get yu both for this,' the man hissed.
'Mebbe, but for now, we've got yu,' Severn told him. 'March, you mealy-mouthed son of a she-dawg, or I won't leave enough o' yu to bury.'
Under the urge of a gun-barrel in his ribs, the ruffian slouched out and down the mountain pathway, his captors, having first pitched all the weapons collected into the valley,followed him. At the corral, Severn took his own mount, Larry picked the best he could to replace the one he had lost and Shadwell was mounted on a third, his hands released and his feet tied to the stirrups. Then the foreman threw the loop of his rope round the prisoner's neck and secured the other end to his saddle-horn.
'If yu like to bolt for it an' save the hangman a job, I ain't objectin',' he remarked pleasantly.
The only reply was a venomous scowl which left the recipient untouched; he had encountered hard looks before. He merely told the fellow to go ahead and take the nearest trail for Hope.
'An' don't yu delay none, for if we get tired o' yore company there's trees a-plenty,' he warned him.
'Yu old son of a gun,' Larry said, as they rode behind the prisoner. 'Couldn't yu get any o' the boys to come with yu, or did yu wanta hog all the glory?'
Severn explained the reason for his solitary effort.
'Boun' to do somethin'--the Princess was right peeved with me,' he added, and chuckled when he saw the boy's face promptly justify his nickname.
'What we goin' to do with this jigger?' Larry nodded towards the outlaw, riding chin down, hunched in his saddle, ahead of them.
'Hand him over to the sheriff.'
'Tyler'll on'y let him go.'
'Yu bet he will, an' that'll put him in wrong with more'n half the folks in Hope. The sheriff ain't goin' to be a bit grateful, believe me.'
Either on account of Severn's warning, or for some reason of his own, Shadwell appeared to be as eager to reach town as his captors, and under his guidance they made such good time that they arrived before nightfall. Their appearance filled the street, and an eager crowd followed them to the shack which served the double purpose of lock-up and sheriff's quarters. Tyler was at home, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw who the prisoner was.
'What's the big idea?' he asked.
In a few brief sentences Severn told of the capture and rescue of Larry and of the taking of Shadwell who, sitting erect now, listened with a scowling face. At the conclusion of the story he broke into a torrent of protest.
'It's a lot o' damn lies. I dunno nothin' about a girl, an' the on'y time I seen these fellas afore was when one of 'em held me up an' the other slugged me in the saloon yonder. I was ridin' the Desert Edge trail 's'afternoon when these two jumped me an' fetched me here.'
'An' this ain't your'n, o' course,' Severn said, fishing the dirty white mask from his pocket.
'Never seed it,' the prisoner lied stolidly. He turned to Tyler. 'Yo're the sheriff, I believe; these jaspers yore deppities?'
'They ain't,' replied that worthy emphatically.
There was a stir as the crowd opened to let Bartholomew through. The big man looked at the outlaw, and there was not a trace of recognition in his glance.
'So that's yore bandit chief, is it?' he said. 'Well he's ugly enough.' Some of the crowd laughed, and Sever , who was watching Shadwell, saw an angry gleam come to his eyes. 'Ain't he the fella that was in the ruckus at the 'Come Again'? What's the yarn?' Bartholomew went on.
The sheriff repeated what Severn had told , and the Bar B rancher turned to the foreman 'Yu go that notice they served?'
Bart glanced over it, and at his suggestion the prisoner was taken into the sheriff's office, given paper and pencil, and made to write down the words of the notice, which Bart read out to him. A comparison of the two plainly showed they were written by different hands.
'That don't help us,' the big man said, and put the papers in his pocket.
Instantly Severn stepped forward. 'That notice belongs to me, an' I'll trouble yu for it,' he said.
'Rightly, it's evidence, an' the sheriff takes charge of it,' was the reply.
'When he wants it I'll be on hand,' the foreman retorted, and there was a threat in his tone. 'Pass it over.'
For an instant Bartholomew hesitated, his face dark with passion, and then he flung the paper on the table.
'Yu keep a-pilin' up the score, Severn,' he rasped. 'There's gotta be a settlin' some time.'
Severn picked up the document, looked to make sure it was the original and laughed as he thrust it back into
