"Better shet y'ur eyes an' years, 'Honest Jim,' so't you won't hev to lie when you tell the vigilantes thet you don' know who tuck the pris'ner," returned Jack Fyffe, significantly.
"Ef you don't do nothin' else, why, I won't know any on ye at all. An' ef ye like, jist take a good swig apiece, an' I'll charge it to profut an' loss," laughed the host, who apparently was not averse to having Poynter escape the doom that threatened him.
"Bully for you, ol' hoss; you won't lose any thin' by it!" was the cry, and his invitation was complied with, two or three times over.
Only pausing for one huge gulp of the liquor, Jack Fyffe unbarred the door, and soon severed the cords that hampered Poynter, who, after chafing his benumbed limbs, thanks to the skill Polk Redlaw had shown in drawing the knots, emerged from the long-room, a free man once more.
He glanced around him with not a little curiosity, scanning the forms and features of his rescuers as thoroughly as was practicable by the dim, flickering light cast by the one rude lamp. But if he recognized any of them, excepting Fyffe, he did not show it by word or sign.
"Come, boys," spoke up the tall man we have noted before, "we must make tracks, or those vigilantes will be down upon us. They must have heard the rumpus, I reckon."
"But what shall we do with the prisoners—let them go?"
"No; take them along. We'll keep 'em as hostages, so that if any of our fellows are strung up, we can retaliate. Five of them, isn't there?"
"Yes; but about Sant?"
"Maltby?"