Twenty miles lay between the prisoner and the doubtful security of the jail at Meander, and most 118 of the distance was through the grazing lands within Chadron’s bounds. On the other hand, it was not more than twelve miles to his ranch on the river. He believed that he could reach it before Chadron could raise men to stop him and take the prisoner away.
Once home with Thorn, he could raise a posse to guard him until the sheriff could be summoned. Even then there was no certainty that the prisoner ever would see the inside of the Meander jail, for the sheriff of that county was nothing more than one of Chadron’s cowboys, elevated to office to serve the unrighteous desires of the men who had put him there.
But Macdonald was determined that there should be no private rope party for Thorn, neither at the hands of the prisoner’s employers nor at those of the outraged settlers. Thorn must be brought to trial publicly, and the story of his employment, which he appeared ready enough to tell for the “glory” in it, must be told in a manner that would establish its value.
The cruelly inhuman tale of his contracts and killings, his engagements and rewards, must be sown by the newspapers far and wide. Out of this dark phase of their oppression their deliverance must rise.
CHAPTER X
“HELL’S A-GOIN’ TO POP”
Chance Dalton, foreman of Alamito Ranch, was in charge of the expedition that rode late that afternoon against Macdonald’s homestead to liberate Mark Thorn, and close his mouth in the cattlemen’s effective way upon the bloody secrets which he might in vainglorious boast reveal. Chadron had promised rewards for the successful outcome of the venture, and Chance Dalton rode with his three picked men in a sportsman’s heat.
He was going out on a hunt for game such as he had run down more than once before in his many years under Chadron’s hand. It was better sport than running down wolves or mountain lions, for there was the superior intelligence of the game to be considered. No man knew what turn the ingenuity of desperation might give the human mind. The hunted might go out in one last splendid blaze of courage, or he might cringe and beg, with white face and rolling eyes. In the case of Macdonald, Dalton anticipated something unusual. He had tasted that unaccountable homesteader’s spirit in the past.
Dalton was a wiry, tough man who rode with his elbows out, like an Indian. His face was scarred by old knife-wounds, making it hard for him to shave, in consequence of which he allowed his red beard 120 to grow to inch-length, where he kept it in subjugation with shears. The gutters of his scars were seen through it, and the ends of them ran up, on both cheeks, to his eyes. A knife had gone across one of these, missing the bright little pupil in its bony cave, but slashing the eyebrow and leaving him leering on that side.