It was neck and heels until the horses were reached. After that the pursuers were left at a great disadvantage.
“I’ll have his heart!” ejaculated Watson. Which heart he meant we have no means of knowing. “Give me a horse! quick!”
They brought a mule.
“Wait here, every man of you!” Watson shouted back over the shaved tail of his substitute for a horse. “I’ll bring him back, dead or alive, or my name ain’t Watson!”
And over the way the stage had stopped, and Fanny Borlan had reached Ten Mile Gulch at last.
III.
A little after sunrise, the next morning, Mr. Tom Ruger might have been seen leisurely riding along the bridle-path between the mines and the settlement of Ten Mile Gulch. He was headed toward the village, and was nine and three-quarter miles nearer to it than the mines. He had found another good cigar somewhere, and was humming the self-same tune as on the previous afternoon; but the riderless horse was not with him.
As Mr. Ruger rode into the only street in the village, his approach was heralded, and the Ten Milers, who were waiting for Watson’s return, filed out of the Miners’ Home, and took stations in the street.
Mr. Ruger took note of this demonstration, and, with a very business-like air, examined the contents of his holsters. He also noticed that patched noses and heads, and canes and crutches, were the predominating features in the group of Ten Milers, with an occasional closed eye and a bandaged hand to vary the monotony.
Miss Fanny Borlan, from her window at the Ten Mile House, also noticed the dilapidated looks of the frequenters of the Miners’ Home, and wondered if they kept a hospital there. Then she saw Mr. Ruger, and bowed and smiled as he drew up at her window.