“I told you I couldn’t do it,” said the other man.
“You listen to me. We are going to take those men out, if we have to pull this place to pieces until we find them. That, it’s quite plain, would let the others go, and you would lose the whole of your prisoners instead of two of them. Tell us where you put them, and you can keep the rest.”
“That’s square?”
“Oh, yes,” said Grant. “There are quite enough men of their kind loose in this country already.”
“Straight on,” said the jailer. “First door.”
They went on in silence, but there was a shout when somebody answered their questions from behind a door, which a few minutes later tottered and fell beneath the axes. Then, amidst acclamation, they led two men out, and showed them to the jailer.
“You know them?” said Grant. “Well, you can tell your Sheriff there wasn’t a cartridge in the rifles of the men who opened his jail. He’ll come back when the trouble’s over, but it seems to me the cattle-men have wasted a pile of dollars over him.”
He laughed when a question met them as they once more trampled into the verandah.
“Yes,” he said. “The boys are bringing them!”
Two horses were led forward, and the released men swung themselves into the saddle. There was a hasty mounting, and when the men swung into open fours a shout went up from the surging crowd.