The Vigilantes’ captain did not tarry.
If he had looked into the little room of the stable-home, still dimly lighted by the dusty lantern, he would have seen an inanimate form stretched upon the rumpled cot.
“Hyar’s the cap’n,” cried a score of voices, and Maverick Joe, roused by the sounds, found himself in the midst of his Vigilantes.
The men had been waiting for their leader, and in less than five minutes he placed himself at their head, mounted on his trusted horse Bonanza.
“I’m afraid Old Jack’s dead,” said the Vigilante captain. “Boys, we’ve got to avenge him. Tom Terror is back; he gave Jack his last dose. Think of this boys.”
He got the desired response, oaths of vengeance and looks of eternal hatred.
The band that galloped toward Cut-throat knew every pebble that lay in the road. The Vigilantes went cautiously into the gulch; they glided among its shadows; they waited for their prey at different places with their fingers on their trigger.
“Nothing hyar,” said Maverick Joe, disappointedly, after an hour’s waiting at a certain point. “The game has slipped us for to-night. We must come ag’in. Lilly, Antenat and Moravy, you will remain in Cut-throat. We will go back and bury Old Jack.”
It was with reluctance that the Vigilantes fell in line behind their leader. They must, perforce, give up the hunt for that night.