For the first five minutes there was absolute silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts. How would this thing end? Would their party be intact on the return journey or would one of their number bear mute testimony to Greyhound’s shooting ability and cold, calculating character?
It may be that none of these riders actually analyzed the emotion which prompted him to leave Nugget Camp and venture forth in pursuit of one with whom none of them except Silent had any personal concern. Certainly, the idea of telling the authorities and letting properly authorized men take up the chase, was neither appealing nor feasible.
The nearest home of the law was Hawley, a distance of some seventy or eighty miles. True, there was law of a sort at Eagles, and at some of the other smaller towns, but not sufficient to cope with this situation. Thus, whatever was done must be accomplished by citizens imbued with that spirit which protests forcibly at such depredations as were laid to Greyhound.
After those first few, serious moments, when joking was laid aside out of an unconscious respect for Silent and not from any personal sense of fear of the future, the mood of the riders quickly changed.
“Tell you,” Nick declared, “I’m glad we met up with the Monseer Allen! ’Cause why? ’Cause Bug Eye got seven hundred bucks out o’ him an’ he’s still got his flivver.”
“Never thought of that,” Teddy remarked. “That bird was a regular con man, wasn’t he? Took a chance on losing some money to get a lot back. And if it hadn’t been for Silent here, noticing the gun in Nick’s holster, he might have succeeded.”
“Or he could have caused plenty of trouble for me,” Nick mused. “He sure had me comin’ an’ goin’. That was quite a scheme of his. Never heard of it before. Did you, Silent?”
The puncher shook his head.
“Never did. It’s a new one to me, an’ I thought I knew all about swindling games worked in mining camps. He must have gotten that from some bird from the East—New York or the like.”
“That’s the way it struck me,” Teddy broke in. “It’s an Eastern trick, sure enough. Crooks out here don’t go to that much trouble. If they want to rob a man they do it, and that’s that.”