On and on, dashed Lemuel, horse and rider growing smaller and smaller in the distance. The enemy, under Rankin’s repeated abuse and threats, had drawn rein a few hundred yards away. It began a cautious approach, firing as it came. Billy Gee waited. Dot, becoming alarmed at his inactivity, now noticed that, besides being out of revolver range, he gripped a rifle. In that he had a decided advantage—one which he proceeded to put to use with demoralizing effect.
He brought up the weapon suddenly. There was a flash, and one of the horsemen slumped in the saddle. Again and again the rifle cracked. The morale of the mob ebbed in the face of that unerring marksmanship. The outlaw reloaded, and with something of that dare-devil spirit which had made him the terror of the region, dug spurs to his horse and charged straight for the nearest group of riders, firing with deadly precision as he rode. The group made to stand its ground, but the very fact that this advancing foe was the dreaded bandit of the Mohave, whose past death-defying exploits had set them agog with awe and wonder, proved too much for their vaunted temerity. They whirled about in a panic, and after them went the remaining members of the band, the rifle bullets whining in their ears.
Billy Gee reined in his horse and watched the rout he had caused. Then the very thing he could have predicted came to pass. The horsemen stopped a quarter of a mile off, congregated to talk over a plan of action. Rankin was not for giving up. Billy could hear him bellowing out commands, urging his fellows with curse and taunt back to the attack and the extermination of the outlaw.
CHAPTER XX—GEERUSALEM STIRS
Billy Gee galloped up to the roadster. Dot and Lex had been standing back of it, watching in silence the ridiculous debacle of the Quintell mob caused by this lone knight of the road. The outlaw jerked his horse to a stop before the two, and glanced first at Lex, then at the girl. He smiled at her, an odd, expectant light in his eyes, and swept off his hat cavalierly.
“Yore father is headin’ for Blue Mud Spring, Miss Huntington. Warburton is campin’ there, as you mebby know. I reckon he’ll be safer.” He spoke in low, gentle tones.
She regarded him for a moment with an eagerness that she could not hide. The early morning light was on his face, its subtle rosiness softening it, showing a lingering loneliness and sympathy in the flashing eyes, a boyishness of feature, a charming recklessness of expression. He sat his horse gracefully, his figure garbed in whipcord, flowing white chaps covering his legs, his hat a splendid huge thing of gray felt, while about his neck hung the bandanna handkerchief that had recently served him as a mask.
She blushed, approval and admiration in her eyes, and held out her hand to him.
“I don’t know how to thank you for this, Billy Gee,” she said simply, a quiver in her voice.
“You don’t never need to, Dot. I owe you a bigger favor, you reckillect. I jest happened to fall in with the gang as it was ridin’ out here, an’ heerd what they were goin’ to do. But I’d not have got away with it, if you hadn’t come along in yore auto, Mr. Sangerly—that is, not easy,” he added, with a look at Lex. “Of course, you know this here’s Quintell’s doin’s. He’s payin’ pretty for it, let me tell you.”