“Wake up, Otis! Are you dumb?” It was Jess Bledsoe speaking. “Don’t you know we’ve got Pie-face waiting for you outside, honin’ to take you through the Tetons to Idaho?”
“What—what?” stammered Otis, astounded. “What are you going to do? What—”
“Shut up an’ git out o here!” commanded Spider Ponsonby joyously. “Like as not, some o’ the honest citizens o’ this town will think we’re holdin’ a necktie party, and ’ll take a pot shot at us in the dark.”
“But I don’t underst—” Otis was being hurried out of the jail in the midst of the throng of cow-men. From time to time he was dealt enthusiastic slaps upon the back. In the dim light he discerned Sheriff Lafe Ogden, reclining against the wall just inside the outer door. The Sheriff’s left wrist was shackled to his right ankle with his own handcuffs. His holster swung empty at his thigh. He was fully conscious and unharmed, and was shaking his tingling right hand, from which his revolver had been sent spinning by a well-directed bullet.
“But I thought you shot him!” exclaimed Otis in surprise as he saw the Sheriff.
“He fired in the air to scare us,” explained Simple. “So Jess Bledsoe, thinkin’ he might hurt somebody next time, shot the gun outa his hand. Jess could hit a dime in the dark at forty paces!”
They were outside now. Otis heard a familiar whinny. Pie-face was being held by a grumbling cow-hand, indignant because his duties as horse-holder had caused him to miss part of the fun.
“But why—” began Otis, not entirely recovered from his astonishment. “Why did you—”
He was standing with his bridle in his left hand, which rested lightly on Pie-face’s mane, preparatory to mounting. A dozen of the cow-hands clustered about him, striving to grip him by the hand or to slap him upon the shoulder in token of their approbation.
“’Cause we didn’t think you had the guts to do it,” answered Simple, who appeared to be their spokesman. “Otis, when you beat it last night after we-all had picked you for—for that job, you had us all plumb fooled by your talk. When you said you wouldn’t do it, we thought you was scared.