“Go, I tell you! And you”—he took two quick steps, and, before The Falcon knew what he was about, had slapped his hips and coat to locate a concealed revolver—“you,” he finished in a roar, “are a prisoner! The nerve of ye!”
Manzanita stifled a scream with her hand across her mouth. Falcon the Flunky backed away from Squawtooth, his jaw dropping.
Canby laid a hand on the ivory butt of the heavy Colt that was always at his hip.
“O’ course,” he said, “’twon’t be no use fer ye to try startin’ anything. I’m gonta tie yer hands an’ feet, an’ then ride over to the camps fer the dep’ties. You here makin’ love to my daughter! I oughta horsewhip ye!”
Falcon the Flunky’s face was twitching. “Mr. Canby,” he said earnestly, “I’ll thank you to refrain from such violent remarks until there has been a little explanation. I——”
“I don’t wanta hear any explainin’. I guess a thief always can explain some way. Manzanita!” He flashed a quick glance at her. “You don’t savvy, o’ course, or ye wouldn’t ’a’ acted like ye did. This here’s one o’ the men that held up the mail stage. T’other ’n’s this minute on his way to the inside, with handcuffs on.”
“They’ve arrested Halfaman Daisy!” cried the Falcon.
Squawtooth paid no attention to the interruption, but continued to his daughter:
“I jest learned the latest pertickelers over to Mangan-Hatton’s as I was ridin’ through. I already knew about the tie, o’ course. The sheriff wasn’t any too sure about anything when he left for the inside. He’d gone up in the mountains to get the boys to come down and take charge o’ things while he was away. And when they got down here on the desert this evenin’ they found that, while the sheriff had been on his way up, these two bandits had come in, bold as Cuffy, with six er seven thousan’ dollars’ worth o’ mules and new harness and scrapers. The sheriff had gone and didn’t know anything about it, so the head dep’ty took up this Daisy at Jeddo’s camp where he saw that outfit, an’ now they’re huntin’ fer this fella here. Word come to-day that Dal Collins died in the hospital, and our boys an’ the desert rats was gettin’ so mad the dep’ties hadta rush that Daisy away in the machine to save ’im.
“Now, I ain’t keen about lynchin’ a man myself.” He turned back to the flunky. “But Dal was mighty popular with the boys in this part o’ the country, and they ain’t no tellin’ what they might do if they got their hands on you two fellas. So best thing you c’n do is le’ me tend to things and not raise any rumpus. I’ll keep ye here an’ go tell the dep’ties I got ye. They’ll sneak ye away to Opaco somehow, ’thout lettin’ the desert folks know ye’ve been caught. If I take ye to ’em, why, my boys are there, and it wouldn’t be a nice sight—not a nice sight at all. Suit ye to stay here while I go tell ’em?”