“The proper thing, sir,” agreed Harrison. “By the way, did you ascertain if Lennox is stopping there?”
“I’m not certain. That will be for Rankin to find out. But here’s the situation, so far as Warburton and Huntington are concerned: As I was going into the ranch, Billy Gee, the bandit—he’s back in the country—was coming out. I don’t know what he was doing—talking to Huntington, I imagine. Warburton was snooping around the house after him and nailed me instead of him. The point is, we’ll circulate the news that Billy Gee was staying at the ranch—hiding out, you understand. In other words, we’ll frame Huntington, make him out the outlaw’s friend, and the long hairs of the camp won’t make a cheep at the action of a vigilance committee. If we work it smoothly, we’ll have them with us. Here comes a machine. Quick! Run! Follow me!”
Speeding down the road from the direction of the settlement, the lights of an automobile appeared, visible now and again over the boulders and clumps of brush. Quintell and his secretary dashed for their car, sprang in, and went careening off for camp. Billy Gee stood and watched the two machines whirl by each other. He stood in the grip of conflicting emotions. The broker’s insulting reference to Dot had been sufficient in itself to whip him into a murderous fury, but the very urge he had felt to kill the fellow on the spot had been restrained by an overwhelming discovery which he had made a moment before.
Just now, he gazed vaguely through the night after the tail light disappearing in the gloom of Geerusalem Gulch. Presently he tore his eyes away from it to look at the other machine. It was approaching at moderate speed, bouncing and swaying over the rough road. Of a sudden, as it went bowling past him, a girl’s silvery laughter smote his ears. The sound electrified him. He caught his breath, and his body stiffened like steel. He thought he could make out the forms of two women in the rear seat; the man driving wore the regulation chauffeur’s cap.
The machine whirled on, and for many minutes he stared after it, until it was swallowed up in the darkness toward the Huntington ranch. He roused himself finally. It must be she, and that was his mother with her. But why had they come? His heart began singing within him. He threw back his head and smiled up at the stars. It was a “large” night out, sure enough; but there was nothing in Geerusalem to attract him.
Then his mind turned to what he had just overheard between Quintell and Harrison, and a low whistle broke from him as he realized the vast importance of the information he possessed. “This powerful rogue, Jule Quintell, was preparing to sell salted ground to the Mohave & Southwestern Railroad Company. To rob that company—not openly as he had done—but stealthily, perfidiously, under the guise of fair dealing. To-night, Quintell proposed to crush Huntington too, to drive Dot’s father out of the country—probably kill him, as had been done to others. He wanted the Billy Geerusalem claims, did he? So, Mister Quintell believed it would be as easy as all that—simply a matter of taking over the ranch and ousting Tinnemaha Pete and himself? After they had found this big bonanza, Quintell intended grabbing it, eh?”
He walked over to his horse presently and mounted. He was chuckling harshly. He held Jule Quintell in the hollow of his hand. The one menace now was Sheriff Warburton. Yes, Warburton was a menace, but there was a way of winning him over, the only way. He turned his horse about and went spurring off through the darkness for Blue Mud Spring.
That voice! That face he had glimpsed by the light of the match!
“It’s a large night out, believe me!” he muttered grimly.