“You’re a dandy, Crowfoot!” laughed Frank. “Here they are, Curry, the whole bunch. You can gather them and escort them to Cottonwood, or anywhere you please.”
“And a great haul it is, pard,” nodded Curry. “I sees three gents now what has rewards offered for them. It’s my opinion that they hangs. Get to work, boys, and we will tie up the whole bunch so they can’t wiggle when they awake.”
Old Joe looked on in apparent dissatisfaction and dismay.
“You no chop um up some?” he questioned. “You no kill um a heap. Then what Joe him get? He no have a scalp.”
“What do you get, Joe?” exclaimed Merry. “You have saved my mines for me. You get anything you want—anything but scalps.”
CHAPTER XVIII—A BUNCH OF PRISONERS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A BUNCH OF PRISONERS.
Pete Curry and his two deputies set off the next morning with their prisoners—thirteen in all. They were taking the ruffians direct to the nearest point where they could be confined and afterward delivered for trial into the hands of certain officers, who would take several of them to different parts of Arizona where they had committed crimes. At noon the second day they reached a point in a barren valley where the sun beat fiercely. Scorched mountains rose to the east and west. They came to a halt.