“They’ll be watchin’ hard for you down the cañon, boy. Bob Long’s sure to mean business this ’ere time.”
“Well, I know it,” said Rathburn with a low, mirthless laugh. “I locked him in his own jail this mornin’ to get a clean chance to decide to give myself up. Then, when the chance came––well, he surely thinks now that I put him away to cover my tracks. I expect the boys have got their shootin’ orders.”
“Listen!” whispered Price excitedly. “Wait till I get my own horse, an’ I’ll strike east across the hump. That’ll start ’em after me maybe––sure it will, Rathburn! They’ll think I’m you, see, an’ light right out after me.”
Rathburn laid one hand on the old man’s shoulder and put the other over Joe’s mouth.
“Joe, you’re all excited––plumb unreasonable excited. You know I wouldn’t let you do that. Now don’t hand me more worries than I’ve got. Be good, Joe.” He patted Price’s shoulder, then swung into the saddle.
The old miner looked up at him, his face showing strangely white in the dim starlight, pierced by the fire on the peak.
“I didn’t tell ’em you’d been here, Roger; don’t forget that!”
“I knew that, Joe,” Rathburn chuckled. “So long.”
Swiftly he rode down the little meadow below the spring into the deep shadows of the cañon which led down a steep trail to the desert. Presently he checked his pace until he was walking the gallant dun. He wished to avoid as much noise as possible, and to save the horse for a final spurt down nine miles of desert to the Mallory ranch from the mouth of the cañon––providing he got out.