“Naturally, in a land of sword-swallowers, I would;” the Schoolmarm made a wry face.
“Once I run with a high-stepper from Bowlin’ Green, Kentucky, and she told me better nor that,” he explained. “She said nothin’ give a feller away like his habit of handlin’ tools at the table. She was a lady all right, but she got the dope habit and threw the lamp at me. The way I quit her didn’t trouble me. None of ’em ever had any holt on me when it come to a show-down; but you, girl, you——”
“Look!”
Her sharp exclamation interrupted him, and, following her gesture, he saw a flying horseman in the distance, riding as for his life, while behind him two other riders quirted their horses in hot pursuit.
“Is it a race—for fun?”
“I don’t think it,” Smith replied dryly, noting the direction from which they came. “It looks like business.”
He knew that the two behind were Indians. He could tell by the way they used their quirts and sat their horses. Neither was there any mistaking the bug-hunter on his ewe-necked sorrel, which, displaying unexpected bursts of speed, was keeping in the lead and heading straight for the ranch-house. With one hand McArthur was clinging to the saddle-horn, and with the other was clinging quite as tightly to what at a distance appeared to be a carbine.
“He’s pulled his gun—why don’t he use it?” Smith quickened his horse’s gait.
He knew that the Indians had learned White Antelope’s fate. That was a lucky swap Smith had made that morning. He congratulated himself that he had not “taken chances.” He wondered how effective McArthur’s denial would prove in the face of the evidence furnished by the saddle-blanket. Personally, Smith regarded the bug-hunter’s chances as slim.
“They’ll get him in the corral,” he observed.