“That gives him an ear-full,” remarked Tom. “Now if he’ll only get a hustle on and tell us what he knows.”
“Perhaps it won’t amount to anything after all,” said Dick pessimistically. “There may be hundreds of men with scars just like Muggs Murray.”
“To be sure that wouldn’t in itself prove anything,” agreed Phil, “but there may be other things to corroborate it. At any rate give the old boy a chance to tell his story before you begin glooming.”
A short time elapsed, although it seemed to the boys like ages, and then Steve’s voice again made itself heard.
“Good stuff,” it said. “’Pon my word, Phil, you ought to be a lawyer. Of course, you left out a good deal I’d have been glad to know about that airplane stunt of yours and Dick’s, but I put that down to your natural modesty. Glad you jugged two of the robbers anyway. Now ‘listen my children and you shall hear’ not ‘of the midnight ride of Paul Revere’ but of something that concerned yours truly a good deal more.
“Two days ago there was an attempt to hold up this station. We’re accustomed to rough stuff of that kind down here, and we usually try to be ready for it. At the time there was only Captain Bradley and myself in the place. Bradley, by the way, is the captain of the troop of Texas Rangers that I’m connected with, and believe me he’s some man. You’d like him if you came to know him. The pay chest of the troop was in my cabin, and though we try to keep that sort of thing quiet somehow or other it must have got abroad. We were going over some papers together, when suddenly a shot came through the window and took off the captain’s hat. Naturally, that peeved him somewhat, he not being a lamb by nature, and he reached for his gun, while at the same time I grabbed mine. The door was locked, but on looking through one of the peepholes with which the place is provided, we saw half a dozen fellows coming full tilt for the cabin while at the same time a volley of bullets whistled their way into the logs. Our guns barked back and one of the fellows went down. We kept our revolvers going, and I guess the gang thought that there were a good many more of us in the cabin than they had counted on, for after doing a little more shooting they picked up their pal and beat it back out of range.
“There they stopped and held a pow-wow. We reloaded and then I got out my glasses and took a good squint at the band. The fellow who was evidently the leader was the dead image of the man you described. He had a scar that reached almost from his mouth to his ear on his right cheek and tallied with your man in all the other respects you mention. He wasn’t a greaser either. Just the tough gunman type you see in the slums of any big city. I studied him hard and know I would recognize him instantly again if I should ever meet him.
“They palavered a while and then concluded that they had had enough of our game and called it off. They rode off toward the Mexican border, that no man’s land that is as full of tough characters as a dog is full of fleas. Some time later a bunch of our boys who had heard the shooting came hurrying up, and the captain put himself at their head and went in pursuit. But the fracas happened just at the edge of dusk, and in the darkness the fellows got away. Probably crossed the Rio Grande.
“Now, that’s my little spiel and you can take it for what it is worth. It’s the same kind of a man as robbed the Castleton bank and he’s playing the same kind of a game. Of course, Laguna is a long way off from Castleton, but he’s had plenty of time to get here, and as a matter of fact, he’d naturally put a big stretch of country between himself and your town. If I were you I’d give the tip to the detectives who are looking for him and let them come down and get him if he proves to be the man they’re after. Or better still, come down and get him yourselves. I’m not kidding. Come down and get him yourselves. Mull this over in what you call your brains and call me again in five minutes.”
The voice ceased, and the listeners looked at each other with a new thought stirring in their minds.