"Jump up back o' me. It ain't so awful far f'm what these boys say. We'll have to foot it, anyway, for quite some distance, if we want to s'prise 'em."
When the place where the wood-road turned off was reached the sheriff decided to leave the horses.
"One o' you boys stay here now with the deputy an' help guard these horses," instructed the sheriff. "Which'll it be?"
"I guess it's Chick-chick's find," volunteered Glen. "I'll stay."
"Keep your eyes sharp open," the sheriff instructed his deputy. "If they'd get started afore we could get to their car they might slip by us. Then, there ought to be two more of 'em somewheres around, too. Might be comin' up any minute. They're slick."
After the men had gone Glen found it anxious work waiting with the deputy and the horses while Chick-chick led the sheriff's posse to glory.
"I suppose we'll hear 'em shooting most any minute," he said to the deputy.
"Mebbe we will—mebbe we won't," replied the deputy. "We won't if things go the way the old man intends."
"How is that?" asked Glen.
"There won't be any shootin' unless they's some break in his calc'lations. His way don't make much allowance for it. He'll get up there right silent an' have his men posted convenient; then he'll step out an' say 'Come along o' me, Coventry. No good fussin'. My men got ye dead to rights.' An' mos' generally they come."