“If he’s aimin’ to go through that window, the gents in there will shoot him in two,” the cattleman protested.
“Sure would,” Silent agreed.
“I don’t know what he’s aimin’ to do, but I’m sayin’ positive, whatever it is, I’m backin’ his play,” Toothpick stated emphatically.
“Hey, Toothpick, come over here,” Allen called from his hidden perch.
Toothpick, followed by Sam Hogg, wiggled toward the depression from which he knew the voice came. A rifle cracked from within the adobe building, and Toothpick’s hat flew from his head. He flattened out and wiggled the faster. A few seconds later he slid down the side of the small basin to Allen. He was closely followed by Sam Hogg, who had retrieved the hat. Toothpick looked at it ruefully for a moment and poked his finger through the hole in the crown.
“Huh! That gent sure parted my hair.”
“Jim, yuh figured out a way we can get at them hombres?” Sam Hogg demanded.
“I ain’t sure she works,” Allen replied. “Yuh gather Tom Powers and yuhr brother over the hill by that ore wagon—if she works, I’ll come and tell yuh about it.”
The cattleman told himself that Allen deliberately tried to be mysterious. However, he went to collect his brother and Tom Powers.
Allen and Toothpick sought out Tad Hicks. The three passed along a deep gully to a ledge some ten feet high. Here Allen explained to them the first part of his plan and the part they were to play in it. A half hour later, when they approached the ore wagon, all three were grinning like schoolboys.