Emerson Mead at once went to work to get his friend out on bail. He saw the sheriff, John Daniels, go into the White Horse saloon and hurried after him. As they stood facing each other, leaning against the bar and talking earnestly, Mead saw Daniels flash a look of intelligence and nod his head slightly to some one who had entered from a back room toward which Emerson’s back was turned. Instinctively he reached for his gun, and Jim Halliday grabbed his right wrist with both hands while John Daniels seized his left. With the first touch of their fingers, the remembrance flashed through his brain that he had left his revolver on the table in his room. He would have thought it as impossible to forget that as to forget his trousers, but the thing was done, and here was the result. He shrugged his shoulders and said quietly:
“You’ve caught me unarmed, boys. I’m at your service—this time.”
They looked at him in doubting surprise. To catch Emerson Mead unarmed seemed a most unlikely fairy tale. The two men held his arms and Daniels called a third to search him. Mead flushed and bit his lip.
“I’m not used to having my word doubted,” he said, “but I can’t blame you for doubting it this time. I can hardly believe it myself. Jim, you’ve struck just the one chance in a thousand years.”
Halliday laughed. “Well, I’ve been lucky twice to-day, and I reckon I haven’t worn out the run yet.”
Mead smiled indulgently down from his superior height, and said: “Work it while it runs, Jim; work it while it runs. You can have your innings now, but mine won’t be long coming.”
“Well, you won’t have any chance to get yourself hauled over the back wall this time, I’ll tell you that right now.”
They hurried their prisoner off to jail, and in a few minutes he also was locked behind thick adobe walls.