"You—you are—Get out of here! Vamoose quicker'n a streak of greased lightning. Don't you know I'm an officer of the law?" exclaimed the gamey little sheriff suddenly turning his back on Jesse and Frank. And the latter two with a laugh walked from the scene of carnage and disappeared in the night.
"Well," snarled Frank, "you have put your foot in it this time everlastingly."
"Oh, I don't know. We'll see," was his laconic answer.
The two men walked across a vacant lot, picked up their horses, mounted and rode out to a mountain gulch nearby, where they joined their fellows. It was no unusual thing for horsemen to be seen on the streets of Silver City, and therefore it excited no comment when seven men rode in from different directions on the following morning. The uniform quality of their horseflesh, however, did attract the attention of the mountaineers, but though each carried a Winchester in his saddle holster, the men excited no more than ordinary interest.
So changed in appearance were the notorious outlaw and his brother that it would have been a keen eye indeed, that would have been able to discover, under their disguises, the men whose guns had done such deadly work in the Golden Arrow on the previous evening.
None of the newcomers appeared to be traveling together. Now and then one would drop from his horse and visit a saloon, two visited the postoffice and others took in a general store below in which was the second bank.
But had one been suspicious he might have noted a certain method in the actions of these newcomers who seemed to be everywhere at once, and yet acting without any apparent motive.
After a time the band seemed to have formed in two sections—one at the north end of the main street and the other at the south, the latter section consisting of fewer men than the northern group.
On the north might have been found the great outlaw, his brother having cast his lot with the band to the south.
Jesse sauntered carelessly into the postoffice and asked if there was any mail for Jim Howard.