A deafening roar went up from the cavalcade. A hail of bullets riddled the radiator. Racing alongside, several of the riders thrust their six-shooters down on Lex and the girl, commanding a halt. Dot got a fleeting glimpse of her father, bareheaded, his face ashen with terror. He sat astride a horse, his hands tied behind him. Lex brought the machine to a stop, and the mob surrounded it.
“Out of that buzz wagon, partner!” cried Big George Rankin, spurring forward. “It seems to me you’re itching for that coat of tar I promised you. You can’t monkey with a law-and-order bunch in these parts without getting your feet wet. Kid,” addressing Dot, “you hop out of there, too. I suppose, Mr. Sangerly, you were on your way to spread the alarm, eh? Well, we’ll attend to you before we do anything else. You’re a pretty wise bird—in Los Angeles,” he added significantly.
The whole troop was by now drawn around the roadster—a grim company, surely, what with their grotesque, blood-red handkerchief masks and attitude of lawless abandon. Lex and Dot stood on the ground near the roadster. The girl was weeping audibly, gazing with distracted eyes through the press of horsemen for sight of Lemuel.
“Father!” she cried again and again, her agonized voice rising above the chorus of menacing suggestions as to what should be done with the meddlers of the night’s business. But she got no answer to her passionate cry.
Day was breaking fast, as is usual on the Southwestern deserts. Soapweed Plains lay cold and gray and mysterious to the eye, its vast stretches of brush and sand resembling some gigantic crazy-quilted design. The Geerusalem Hills rose near at hand, looking like a great dab of mixed paint—a vividly mineralized pile of granite and porphyritic rock.
Rankin and two other men were conversing in low animated tones, trying to arrive at some decision concerning the disposal of Dot and Lex. They were not agreeing.
Suddenly a shot rang out from beyond the circle, followed by the gurgling cry of a man. There was a wild scamper of hoofs, then the sharp crack of a quirt across a horse’s withers. A volley screamed over the roadster. The riders clustered around it hesitated an instant. Another volley scattered them like chaff, dropping three of their number. This way and that they dashed madly, every man for himself. Rankin roared out a command, hurling a string of oaths after them.
“If you’re lookin’ for Billy Gee, here he is. Come take him! Come on, you brave wallopers! You—Rankin!” shouted a lone horseman, sitting his mount some distance away. He fired, and the leader’s hat went sailing off his head. Emptying his revolver wildly at the other, Rankin, fuming with rage, swung his horse about and sped after his followers.
A wild thrill swept Dot. She stared in blank amazement at the erect slim figure of their rescuer. Far behind him, racing across the plains like mad, went another rider, her father, and Billy Gee, the outlaw, the hero of her romantic dreams, was covering his retreat, holding in nervous indecision two score ruffians who faltered at the mere mention of that magic name, which stood for open defiance of law! She knew that Billy Gee must have been a member of that mob, that he had joined it with the express purpose of liberating her father at the first opportunity.
While she gazed at him these things flashed through her mind; and into her bosom came an ecstasy, sweeter than any she had ever known. Out there in the cold gray dawn of Soapweed Plains, was the man she loved, alone, dauntlessly challenging a heavily armed cavalcade that had visited its wrath on the Huntington home because of him, a cowardly crew whom he had dispersed with a dozen shots!