The clerk hastened to carry out his orders and jammed package after package of bills into one of the largest of the coin sacks. Both men were white-faced and frightened. They did not try to delay the proceedings. Rathburn looked dangerous; and what was more sinister, he went about his nefarious business in a cool, calm, confident manner. He did not look like the Rathburn who had visited Laura Mallory the night before, nor the Rathburn who had talked with the sheriff. In this critical moment he was in look, mood, and gesture The 225 Coyote at his worst––worthy of all the terrible things that had been whispered about him.
It may be that the bank employees suspected as much. It may be that they didn’t believe it would be possible for the outlaw to make his get-away in broad daylight, and it was certain that they stood in mighty fear of him. They cowered back, pale and shaking, as he calmly took the sack, heavy with its weight of bank notes of healthy denomination, and stepped to the entrance to the big vault.
“When they come an’ let you out,” said Rathburn, “you can tell them that the gent who helped himself to the berries in the cash box is just beginnin’ to cash in on the reputation that’s been wished on him!”
He smiled grimly, as he swung the light, inner door of the vault shut and clamped down the lever. He slid his gun into its holster and, carrying the sack of loot, walked out of the door of the second cage toward the main entrance of the bank. As he reached the door, a man came up the steps. Rathburn recognized Doane, and his lips curled in a snarl. It was the first time Doane had come face to face with him, but the man started back in surprise.
“Rathburn!” he exclaimed.
Rathburn hesitated. His first feeling of instinctive animosity fled. He scowled in a swift effort to place the man, and the thought that in an indirect way Doane was partly responsible for what had come to pass flashed through his tortured brain. This brought swift comprehension of his immediate danger. Now that he had taken the decisive step he would have to call upon all his resources of courage and cunning to protect his liberty. The die had been cast!
He hurried past Doane, swung into the saddle, 226 and rode at a swift pace around the corner, leaving Doane standing on the steps of the bank, staring after him with an expression of amazement on his face.
Rathburn knew it would be but a matter of a very few minutes before the knowledge that the State Bank of Hope had been held up and robbed––would be common property in the town. The very boldness of the robbery had insured its success, for none would dream that a lone bandit would have the nerve to come into town in broad daylight, hold up the bank, and attempt to run for it across the open, burning spaces of the desert. But he was not aware of the coincidence which would make the news of the robbery known sooner than he expected.
At the end of the side street he struck boldly across the desert, driving in his spurs and urging the gallant dun to its top speed. In a matter of minutes he was out of view of the town––a speck bobbing amid the clumps of mesquite, palo verde, and cactus. He raced for the mountains in the northwest.
There was another element of uncertainty which entered into the probability of quick pursuit, as he had shrewdly divined. It might be some time before the sheriff’s predicament was discovered. Meanwhile most of the male population was scouring the vicinity of Imagination Range looking for him, and there would be no one to lead a second posse until the sheriff was liberated. There was nothing in sight behind him toward town except the vista of dry desert vegetation swimming in the heat. Rathburn rode on with a feeling of security, so far as trouble from that quarter was concerned.