"Where's the kid?"
The Spider straightened and held the lamp high. "Take her in there," and he gestured toward his room. Two of the men carried her to the couch and covered her with the folds of the serape which had slipped from her shoulders as she fell.
"Say the word, Spider, and we'll ride 'em down!" It was "Scar-Face" who spoke, a man notorious even among his kind.
The Spider, strangely quiet, shook his head. "They'll ride back here. They were after Young Pete. She smashed the lamp to give him a chance to shoot his way out. They figured he'd break for the back—but he went right into 'em. They don't know yet that they got her. And he don't know it." He hobbled round to the back of the bar. "Have a drink, boys, and then I'm going to close up till—" and he indicated his room with a movement of the head.
Young Pete, riding into the night, listened for the sound of running horses. Finally he pulled his pony to a walk. He had ridden north—up the trail which the posse had taken to Showdown, and directly away from where they were searching the desert for him. And as Pete rode, he thought continually of Boca. Unaware of what had happened—yet he realized that she had been in great danger. This worried him—an uncertainty that became an obsession—until he could no longer master it with reason. He had ridden free from present hazard, unscratched and foot-loose, with many hours of darkness before him in which to evade the posse. He would be a fool to turn back. And yet he did, slowly, as though an invisible hand were on his bridle-rein; forcing him to ride against his judgment and his will. He reasoned, shrewdly, that the posse would be anywhere but at The Spider's place, just then.
In an hour he had returned and was knocking at the door, surprised that the saloon was closed.
At Pete's word, the door opened. The Spider, ghastly white in the lamplight, blinked his surprise.
"Playin' a hunch," stated Pete. And, "Boca here?" he queried, as he entered.
"In there," said The Spider, and he took the lamp from the bar.
"What's the use of wakin' her?" said Pete. "I come back—I got a hunch—that somethin' happened when I made my get-away. But if she's all right—"