"You know well enough what it means!" bellowed Tate, still clutching him by the arm. "You come back here. You are not going to take that train or any other just yet."
"And you're not going to carry off that bag, either," put in Jackson, as he wrenched the Gladstone away.
By this time the crowd completely surrounded Carson Davenport, and the pistols which had been drawn were speedily thrust out of sight. The oil well promoter was pushed in the direction of the little railroad station, and in the midst of this excitement the train pulled out.
"What's the rumpus about, anyway?" exclaimed one man in the crowd.
"Never mind what it's about," broke in Tate hastily. "This is our affair."
"That's right—maybe we had better keep it to ourselves," muttered Jackson.
"I don't believe in shielding him," cried one man who had chased Davenport and who wore several soldier's medals on his vest. "He's a swindler, and it's best everybody knew it. He was on the point of lighting out for parts unknown with all the money that was put into his oil wells up on the Spell ranch."
"Is that right?" burst out another man.
"It is. And Tate and Jackson know it as well as I do. I guess Davenport came to the conclusion that those wells he was putting down were no good, and rather than sink any more money into them he was going to run off with it."
"I wasn't running off with anything," declared Carson Davenport. "I was going to put the money into the bank at Wichita Falls. I had a perfect right to do that," and as he spoke he glared at Tate and Jackson.