“Huh, they could stand off an army in that place,” he told himself after he had scouted about it. Quietly he returned and rejoined the campers.
With day they considered the possibility of an attack. Tom Powers, Sam Hogg, and Jim Allen looked over the situation carefully through strong glasses. All three decided that it would not only be costly in lives, but completely hopeless. The place had been built to serve as a fortress against the Apache, in the days when the mine had been worked. Over the crest of the hill there were several roofless buildings and a huge weather-stained derrick that had been used to hoist ore from the mine.
“Hello! There’s a gent with a white flag,” Tom Powers said, pointing.
The heavy metal-studded door of the adobe house had been opened a crack, and a man stood waving a white shirt. Sam Hogg arose from the concealment of the bushes behind which he had been crouching and waved his hat. The door opened wider, and Mac Kennedy, still holding the shirt, stepped out into the sunlight. He advanced twenty yards and beckoned the ex-Ranger forward.
“Makin’ believe he was a dude!” Tom Powers growled.
“Like I did pretendin’ to be a hobo,” Allen replied with a grin.
“Sam, don’t go to meet him. Make him come to you. I’ve heard stories about Cupid Dart—he’s treacherous as a snake,” the sheriff advised.
“Don’t worry none, Mr. Hogg. If he bats an eye, I’ll drop him,” Allen said confidently.
Sam Hogg advanced to meet Cupid Dart, and they talked for several minutes. When Sam returned to Powers and Allen, after the outlaw reentered the fortress, his face was white and drawn.
“There’s hell to pay!” he exclaimed. “They has the judge in there with ’em. And unless we gives up Pete Cable, they promises to hang him high and proper.”