“That’s right,” nodded Dillon, laying hold of Dick. “We will chuck him back there in a hurry.”
“Take your hands off me, you brute!” panted the boy. “I will go back of my own accord. Let me alone.”
Dillon dragged him to his feet, but, with a wrench, he suddenly tore free. If the ruffians expected him to resume the effort, they soon found he had no such intention, for, with a remarkably steady step, he walked across the floor to the open door of his prison room.
In the doorway he turned and faced them, the handkerchief about his head already showing a crimson stain on one side. His dark eyes flashed with unutterable scorn and contempt.
“I know you all three!” he exclaimed. “Wait till my brother finds out about this business. The whole Southwest won’t be large enough to hide you in safety.”
Then he disappeared into the room, scornfully closing the door behind him.
“Gents,” said Spotted Dan, “for real, genuine sand, give me a kid like that!”
Then the bar was once more slipped into its socket, and the door was made secure. With throbbing head and fiery pulse, Dick lay on the bunk in that back room as the remainder of the night slipped away.
With the coming of another day he heard the faint hoofbeats of a horse outside, and knew some one had ridden up. Then the muttering of voices in the next room came to him, and his curiosity, in spite of his injury, caused him to again slip to the door and listen at the crack beneath it.
He heard the voice of a strange man saying: