“Let ’em have it low! Don’t kill them, please,” begged Grace.
Sheriff Collins downed Con Bates with a bullet in his shoulder.
Grace took no part in the battle, but sat crouched, chin in hands, narrowly watching the fight while bullets whined over her head and ricochetted from the rocks on either side of her.
The five bandits remaining after their leader had been downed were tumbled over with bullets in their legs in almost that many seconds. But the five were plucky. They struggled to their feet and again began firing. Two volleys from the posse put them down a second time, and this time they stayed down.
“That is what I call good shooting!” declared Grace Harlowe, standing up.
“Great work! Great work!” approved the general.
“A fine bunch of critters, you are!” raged the sheriff, addressing the defeated bandits. “Ought to finish you right here. Thank this woman that I don’t do that very thing. I’ll do it anyhow if any one of you galoots so much as bats an eyelash. Throw those guns away!” roared Mr. Collins.
The Bates gang gave up and were quickly manacled and searched for further weapons. The prisoners secured, Sheriff Collins strode over to Grace.
“Shake, Pard!” he cried, thrusting out a wiry brown hand. “Bet you’d face an old she bear with cubs, an’ laugh at her when she made murder faces at you. We won’t have any more trouble with these critters. I reckon we’ve got the whole gang now, an’ the trail is clear, thanks to you an’ your friends.”
At Grace’s suggestion, Joe led the sheriff and some of his men to the tunnel, where a large amount of valuable plunder was recovered. That night the prisoners were bound to horses and started for the jail at Globe where, this time, they remained until eventually sentenced to long terms in prison. Of Belle Bates, no trace was found. The guests of the Lodge next day gave a dance in honor of the Overlanders, to whom belonged the honor of ridding the Apache Trail of the last band of desperate men that had preyed upon it.