“Well, you hear me. I’ve sworn in each one of these men as my deputies. We’re goin’ to get you! You’re defyin’ the law now.”
“Don’t you scare me thata-way,” Johnny answered sarcastically. “You’d better stay in the rear of your deputies, Roddy, or this mountain will be your monument, and it’d be a shame to waste one as big as this on you.”
Roddy withdrew and appeared in no hurry to close in on his prisoners. This Dice boy was thoroughly disconcerting.
Kent and Gallup tried to insist on storming the mine at once, but wily Jasper Roddy could see no sense in wasting life when it would be easier—and safer—to starve the fugitives into submission.
The morning passed without another shot being fired. The sun, uncomfortably warm for October, began searching the lower cañon and finally drove the posse into the shadow of a ledge which cut them off from Johnny’s vision.
Charlie Paul and the boy dozed in turn as the afternoon wore on. Molly, stoical now, boiled coffee and fried bacon for them.
They knew they were closely watched. The westering sun, glinting on polished rifle barrels, betrayed the stalkers.
Evening came on, and with it the acrid smell of burning sagebrush as the posse prepared its supper. The first thrill of the man hunt had worn off, and Kent’s men were bad-tempered.
Madeiras was there, stretched out upon the ground, half asleep. Gallup had been studying him for some time when the Basque, feeling the man’s eyes on him, sat up and stared insolently at the coroner.
“Guess you ain’t sorry you’re down here,” Aaron growled.