"We came pretty near having a fight, didn't we?" Marquand smiled, looking at Tad for the first time since the disturbance began.
"Almost."
"He would have got me if you hadn't knocked up his gun-hand. That's another one I owe you. Well, maybe we'll have a pay day soon."
"You had better go back to camp with me, and bunk in with us to-night," suggested the lad, "We shall want to make an early start in the morning, anyway. I think it will be safer there, too. That pair won't dare come fooling around our camp, knowing they can't trifle with us," added the lad, with a note of pride in his tone.
"I'll do it. Not that I'm afraid of anything that walks on two legs, but the sooner we hitch up the better it'll be. Got room enough?"
"Plenty. Where's your pony?"
"Up near your camp. Come on."
The man and the boy walked from the hotel, the former looking neither to the right nor to the left, Tad observing their surroundings half suspiciously. He was sure they had not yet heard the last of Bob Lasar and Joe Comstock. In this he was right.
Marquand and the boy had gone no more than ten rods from the hotel, when the report of a revolver was heard, and a bullet fired from the corner of an adobe building passed within an inch of Mr. Marquand's head.
With wonderful quickness the latter drew and sent three shots at the flash.