“There isn’t any blood in those tenderfeet,” he said, speaking to one of the men, but meaning that Frank and Bart should hear. “I’ve driven them into their holes.”
Hodge looked as if he longed to fly at the sneering man.
“Here is the money!” he cried. “If Merry says so, up she goes!”
Frank nodded a bit, and Bart thrust the money into Rodney’s hand. The rancher did not want to take it, but Indian Charlie was not letting any time go to waste.
“Here’s mine!” he exclaimed, quickly covering the amount.
“Say,” broke in Pecos Pete, stepping forward quickly; “this don’t go none whatever. I cotton to this yar tenderfoot, an’ I don’t want ter see him murdered.”
“There can’t be any backing out now!” came triumphantly from the foreman of the Lone Star. “The money is up. I reckon nobody here wants to chip into this game.”
He glanced around in a way that usually served as a warning to those who knew him, but, to his surprise and anger, he suddenly discovered that to a certain extent his former prestige was gone. The men who had known and feared him did not seem to fear him as in former times.
“Ef this wuz a squar deal fer ther tenderfoot it’d be all right,” said Hank Kildare; “but it ain’t that none at all. Ther youngster don’t know what he is goin’ up against.”
“Thank you,” said Frank, quietly. “If I am caught, I’ll stand it, that is all. It will be my funeral, as you say out here.”