“No, I won’t hurt you, but you’ve got to stay, that’s all,” I said. “Help him over to the hotel and then go on with the others and don’t come back,” I added, looking at Joe.
There was nothing for him but to do as he was told, because I held the gun on them both, and they had heard the click as I drew back the hammers. Pike’s left leg seemed to be broken and he was all burned and blackened with the powder. I sent Joe for a mattress, which he put on the floor of the office and rolled Pike on it. Then he drove off with the others.
So that is the whole account of the second visit of the outlaws to Track’s End, just as it all happened, Saturday, March 19th.
“Now, Pike,” I said, after Joe had gone, “the first thing–out with that handcuff key!”
He took it from his pocket and gave it to me. I unlocked each of my bracelets. They left deep red marks around my wrists. Pike asked for a drink of water and I got it for him. I could see that he was in pain. 214
“You’ve played it on us again, Jud, I’ll be hanged if you ain’t,” he said to me. “What’d you have under that counter, Jud?”
“A can of blasting-powder,” I answered.
“Dangerous place to store it when there’s explosions, and kerosene lamps and hot stoves, and fires, and such truck around. It done us fellers up, and that’s a fact.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to make you feel at home,” I replied. “How did you happen to be blowing open other folks’s safes?”
“Oh, it’s all right, Jud, it’s all right,” he said. “I ain’t finding no fault. Only I think you’d ’a’ done better to join us and get your share.”