“Huntington, I’m goin’ to be free one of these days. When I am, I’m huntin’ you up. An’ you’re goin’ to pay, Huntington. Remember that! Damn you, you’ll pay like you never paid in yore life!”
There had been something so frightful, so murderously frightful, in the threat as it fell from the outlaw’s tight-drawn lips. Try as he would, Lemuel had not been able to forget the hatred in the man’s fiery eyes, the icy cut in his voice. He was doomed to be haunted by them, to have memory rehearse them over and over to him.
True, Billy Gee was even now being taken out of the country, southwest to the county seat, San Buenaventura, heavily shackled, under the hawklike eye of Bob Warburton; and countless things would happen ere the train robber served out the long prison sentence that confronted him. But the mere fact that he would serve it out, that he would be free some time, was an overshadowing menace that laid a firm, clammy hand on Lemuel’s heart.
For many minutes he stood and stared across the plains. Doubtless Billy Gee would hunt him up and kill him, he told himself nervously. A vicious bandit of Billy Gee’s ilk would stop at nothing to get revenge. He shook his head, feeling strangely insecure. After a little, he recalled Dot’s interest in the fellow. One thing was certain; she must not even so much as suspect what her father had done. Not until the episode was old and forgotten must she know what had happened to the fugitive.
He knew it was not love for Billy Gee that had prompted her to hide him, help him to escape. Dot was sentimental, romantic; she was just sorry for the scamp. Most women were that way. But after their quarrel last night she must never surmise how he had treacherously spied on her, seen her go into the barn, and lain in wait to capture the man she was trying to save.
So while Dot prepared their breakfast her father made plans whereby she might not know for years to come just what had befallen the magnificent bandit who had ridden into her life out of the magical violet and yellow scallop of hills. In the first place, Lemuel was determined to hurry her out of the locality that she might not hear of the heroic leading rôle he had played; secondly, he cast about for a logical explanation of how he came to have sufficient money to afford a journey such as he contemplated. He knew Dot was too familiar with his affairs not to question his sudden acquisition of any considerable amount of money. He struck upon a happy solution.
During the meal he mentioned rather casually that he was going to Geerusalem to see if he could negotiate a loan from Bob Warburton, and he backed up the propriety of his action by declaring that he had once come to the sheriff’s assistance when the latter was financially down and out.
Dot was interested. To her query as to how much he intended borrowing, Lemuel grinned confidently:
“A coupla thousand dollars, anyway. An’ I’m purty sure to git it, at that.”
She stared across the table at him, perplexed for the moment. What in the world possessed her father this morning? He was so changed, so self-confident, so resolute—as if he were laboring under some suppressed emotion, some unusual good tidings that he was with difficulty keeping to himself. The strange way in which she studied him made him hasten to put at rest any suspicion she may have entertained.