“You’ll have another guess coming about that,” said the scout. “You’re about as contemptible a cur, Lige Benner, as a man could find in a month’s travel. You two men have a chance, here and now, to do the right thing and square yourselves. Tell me where Miss Perry is, and agree to return all the Star-A cattle you’ve rustled and leave Perry and Dunbar alone in future, and we’ll call this account settled. It will be mighty small payment for you scoundrels to make. Hang out against my proposition, and I’ll camp down on the Brazos until I’ve run you men to cover.”
“That’s big talk,” taunted Phelps.
“The way I’ve handled you this morning is a sample of the way I and my pards do things. If you want any more samples, you’ll find us ready to produce. What have you to say?”
“Be hanged to you,” snarled Benner. “You’re a long ways from being out of this yet. You——”
“Buffalo Bill!” called Perry from the door.
As the scout looked, Perry motioned frantically; and the scout ran to the door, the two cattle barons began to yell for help.
“That settles it,” muttered the scout; “it’s neck or nothing with us, Perry. That’s my horse—the black at the end of the hitching-pole. You annex the one hitched alongside. Sharp’s the word!”
Together they sprang through the door. Cowboys seemed to be coming from every direction, on foot and on horseback. The four who had been smoking under the tree were the ones who had caused Perry’s alarm. They had started toward the house in a body. Whether they were merely curious, or whether they had heard something which had aroused their suspicions, the scout never knew. Be that as it might, when the scout and Perry leaped through the door, the four men were almost upon them.
“Stop those fellows!” yelled Benner from inside the house.
There was small need of any urging on the part of the cattle barons. Benner’s cowboys, seeing Perry free and hurrying away with the man who had recently arrived on the black horse, suspected at once that a rescue had been effected.