“Handcuffs?” repeated the Sheriff almost indignantly. “What’d we want with handcuffs? We got our guns, and you aint armed. You wouldn’t dare make a break. We know it, and you know it. No, Otis, I aint going to rub it in. But if you’ll give me your promise you wont try to make a break, it’ll make it a whole lot easier for me.”
Otis laughed shortly. Already they had started down the narrow trail which led from the ranger station to the Buffalo Forks road. Markey was in the lead, and Ogden brought up the rear.
“Sure, Sheriff—I’ll promise you I wont try to get away. If I tried to escape, that would be a mighty good sign that I’m guilty, and that I’m scared to face a showdown, wouldn’t it?”
They were nearing the road, which skirts Red Rock creek, when Markey suddenly reined in his mount and directed Ogden’s attention to a moving figure in the aspens beyond the stream. For a moment Sheriff and deputy eyed the figure and conversed in undertones.
“Looks like one of the Radley boys,” Sheriff Ogden announced at length. “Wonder what he’s doing over here, so far off his own range. Guess we’d better find out.”
CHAPTER IV
“What’re you going to do with me?” Otis inquired, the trace of a smile playing about his lips.
The Sheriff, puzzled, turned to his deputy.
“You better stay here with Otis, Seth,” he directed. Then he glanced at the spot across the stream where the moving figure had disappeared in the trees. For an instant he pondered, uncertain.
“No,” he announced in a moment, “that wont do. It would take two of us to get him, now that he’s in that timber. Guess we’ll have to let him go.”