“Hell he is! Well, you know your orders, Shorty. Bump him off, but wait till we leave, see? Tell Logan to help you. Make a good job of it.”
A number of men dragged Lemuel from his room. He was in a state of collapse. Dot relinquished Mrs. Liggs to Lex, and rushing forward, threw her arms around her father’s neck, begging, pleading hysterically with Rankin, to no purpose. Sangerly began an impassioned appeal also, and received a brutal blow in the face for his interference.
Out through the front door they hustled Lemuel. They bundled him on a horse and set a guard over him, while Rankin rounded up his gang preparatory to departing. At last, with a parting six-shooter volley into the air and a chorus of wild shouts, the mob spurred away. The first faint shafts of light were beginning to silver the eastern sky. Soapweed Plains had never seemed so tragically silent, so filled with woe and frightful foreboding.
Out on the front porch, Lex stood holding Mrs. Liggs. The little old lady was moaning pitifully, clutching Dot’s hand in her own trembling one. The girl was, for the moment, stricken dumb by the suddenness of it all—the destruction of the ranch, the bold abduction of her father, horror over his possible fate at the hands of that lawless crowd. Then she roused herself and darted into the house. The next instant she reappeared, hatted and cloaked, and sped down the steps and along the walk leading to the rear of the premises. Alarmed at her action, Lex helped Mrs. Liggs to a porch chair and hurried after her. He overtook her as she was scrambling through the wire fence into the field.
“Miss Huntington, where are you going?” he panted.
“I’m following them. Please help me catch a horse!” she cried wildly. “Oh, the beasts! The beasts! They’re——” She broke off and listened frantically into the night. “Hear them? They’re taking him toward camp, but there is a trail branching off. They’re going that way. I heard one of them say they intend to set him afoot in Lone Mountain Pass. He’ll die out there. Quick! Mr. Sangerly, I——”
“My car,” he burst out. “If they haven’t destroyed it—tampered with it.” He grasped her arm, and together they raced for the roadster standing to one side of the driveway. “But we ought to run into camp and report the matter to the authorities. We can’t hope to do anything alone, Miss Huntington. It would be madness to oppose them,” he argued, as they sprang into the machine.
By a streak of good fortune—which that arch-plotter Jule Quintell could have easily explained, considering that he felt confident of putting over the right of way deal—the night riders had left the roadster severely alone.
Dot made no reply, and Lex started turning the roadster around in the wide space of yard. At this juncture, two shots rang out inside the house, followed by Mrs. Liggs’ terrified scream from the front porch. A hoarse cry broke from Lex. He brought the car to a sudden halt.
“My God—Lennox! I’d forgotten him. They’ve killed——”