“And you get off to a corner,” he snarled at Alex. “Why isn’t he tied up?” he demanded of the cowboy.
“He agreed to a twenty-four hours’ truce—not to make another break in that time,” the cowman answered as he swept their few dishes into the cupboard.
Bennet’s lip curled under his moustache. “And you believe him, eh?”
There was a suggestion of tartness in the cowman’s prompt “Sure! He rode behind me all the way back, on his word not to attempt anything, and kept it. Could have pulled my own gun on me if he’d wanted to.”
“The more fool,” muttered the railroad man as he spread the roll of paper on the table.
Alex meantime had stepped to the window from which he had taken the fragment of glass, and was disconsolately watching a half dozen hens scratching about below.
Lifting his eyes, he glanced out over the plain. The men at the table heard a sharply-indrawn breath. It was immediately changed into a low whistling, however, and they gave their attention again to the map.
Alex had discovered three horsemen heading for the ranch from the north. And the leading pony he would have known in a hundred. It was Little Hawk’s heavily-mottled horse.
That they were coming to his assistance—that someone had heard the knocking on the wire—he had not a doubt.
The horsemen were still some distance out of hearing. Ceasing the whistling, Alex glanced casually toward the table. Seated in chairs, the two men were still deeply engrossed in the plan before them, talking in low voices.