I knew well enough, of course, that Pratt had gone back there to join his forces and I could hardly hope that the forces were still in jail.
On the new railroad which they were building into Breed only a part of the rails were down; they were not operating trains. There was no stage line through the broken country in that direction.
The Buffalo Hump Mountains were to the south, and to the east the Bitter Root range raised obstructions.
I had the judge on my back, as it were! I couldn’t wake him up to what had happened. He appeared to be mentally and physically prostrated. I myself could have straddled a cayuse and ducked out over the broken country. But the judge must have wheels under him when he was moved.
There seemed to be nothing to do but smash through Royal City, taking our chances. I felt that the citizens there wouldn’t see us murdered on the street, but they could not be expected to go along and guard us all the way home. We would have three buzzards on our trail!
I was mighty blue and some scared. I was wishing that I had not indulged that boyish impulse to carry my fortune in cash. I would be fine picking for those devils! Take that money and the judge, and I had two pretty heavy parcels to tug back to the East. The dusk came down on Breed before I had braced myself to make the jump.
No, there was nothing else to it!
In order to catch trains and get to Levant ahead of calamity we must go back across Callas prairie and run the gantlet of those three renegades.
I reckoned, according to my reading of time-tables, that the delay of even one day would bump our plans fatally.
I had tried several times to find my friend, Mr. Wash Flye. I could not get on to his track to save me. I wanted to talk transportation with him, for I was having a mighty discouraging time of it with other parties.