The others, more sluggish than he, held their places, dazed, wondering, stupefied, and of no more account than so many logs of wood.
Shrewd enough to do this clever thing, Spark Holly was too cautious to spoil it by allowing his movement to be observed. Had he darted over the plain in front of the house, Mont Sterry would have seen the fleeing figure, understood what it meant, and, carrying out his threat, shot down Larch Cadmus.
Holly lost no time in dodging behind the structure, moving with the stealth of an Indian in the stillness of the night. Then he made a circuit so wide that, as he gradually described a half-circle and came round to the point whence he had first advanced to the dwelling, he was so far off that the keenest vision from the interior could not catch a glimpse of him.
Certain of this, he ran only a short distance, when he came up with the half-dozen mounted rustlers of whom Cadmus had spoken, and who were wondering at the unaccountable delay.
The messenger quickly made everything plain, and they straightway proceeded to take a hand in the business.
CHAPTER XVIII. — A MISCALCULATION.
Larch Cadmus was well fitted to act the leader of so desperate a company of men. He was chagrined beyond measure at the manner in which the tables had been turned on him, but, like all such persons, when caught fairly, he knew how to accept the situation philosophically.
None understood better than he that the individual who held that Winchester levelled would press the trigger on the first provocation. He was the one that had sent the warning, and the other was the one that had received it. The twenty-four hours' truce had been ended by the words and action of Cadmus himself, and his chief wonder, now that Fred Whitney was with him, was that Monteith Sterry should show any mercy to his persecutor; had the situations been reversed, the course also would have been different.