"Why don't you go look for her!" demanded Susie, with a sneer. She was beginning to be glad that Linda had gotten away.
Her husband turned on her savagely.
"Look a here, Susie, if you helped that kid to get away—!" He held up his fist threateningly. "I'll make you sorry! Give you a dose of the medicine I was saving for Linda!"
"What do you mean?" she demanded, trembling.
"This gun!" he replied.
"Well, I didn't," she hastened to assure him. "Linda slipped off when I wasn't watching.... But do you mean you were going to shoot Linda?"
"Sure, you fool! That's what kidnappers always do. Bait the big fish till they get the cash, then kill the victim, and ship the corpse. If we sent Linda back alive, she'd have us in the Pen in no time. Our game'd be up."
Susie shivered; she had not realized that the men had any intention of going to that end. True, Slats had once killed a bank messenger, but Susie always excused him on the ground of self-defense. "Hard-boiled" as she was, the idea of shooting an innocent girl like Linda Carlton was too much for her to approve. She felt suddenly sick with the horror of it all.
Slats sat down for a moment on the empty cot, while he thought things over. Linda Carlton must not escape to tell the world of her experience and to give such accurate descriptions of the gang that they would have to be caught. Aside from the matter of the ransom which the kidnapping ought to bring them, they dared not let her go. The case called for immediate action.
"Can you fly that Bug, Susie?" he demanded, abruptly breaking the silence.