"Lark's at home. I left Jelly on guard, back there; had to take that crazy old fellow at Palmer's and tie him up. He came and caught me at the cache, so there was nothing else to do. I wonder if I can borrow a fresh horse, Mr. Delkin?"
"By the lord Harry, you can have anything I've got, down to my last shirt!" As the news took hold of his imagination, Delkin was like another man. He led the way into the stable and on to the corral, choosing mounts for his companions and shouting orders to the scurrying hostler.
Stauffer and Kline, the two other bank directors, ejaculated futile comments but failed to contribute anything further than their presence to the venture. There are always men of that type in any gathering. They have little to say, they never take the initiative, but they do add the force of numbers—a useful incident at times.
"Better tie on some saddlebags, or take a grain sack or two. You know that stuff is a bit bulky," Bud reminded them. "There must be twenty-five or thirty pounds of gold, besides the other currency and papers. I was in too much of a hurry to go over it, after I'd fully identified it as belonging to the bank. And we'd better go out the back way by the trail I came in on. Mr. Delkin, I suppose you know whether your man here needs a gag, or whether he can be trusted to keep his mouth shut."
"Say, you don't need to worry about no gag fer me, young feller," the stableman retorted indignantly. "If it's the bank money you're goin' after, seven hundred and thirty dollars of it belongs t' me! I ain't liable to spill no beans off'n my own plate, I guess."
"You'd be a fool if you did," Bud laughed. "Well, we don't want a single solitary soul to know we've left town, or that I've been here. Mr. Delkin, are you ready?"
Five saddled horses, following five men who unconsciously held the reins in their left hands in preparation for any emergency, walked out of the doorway and into the hot sunlight that lay on the dim trail which joined the road at the foot of the grade.
The stableman stood with his back bowed in and his hands on his hips, teetering up and down on his toes, and watched them go, his jaws working in absent-minded industry on a tasteless quid of much-chewed tobacco.
"I golly, looks like I'll git m' money back, after all!" he cackled gloatingly, and followed the departing horsemen to the doorway, where he stood staring after them until not even their bobbing heads were longer visible as they trotted up the trail. When they were gone, he turned back grinning to his work.