They returned to the pursuit after daylight, but had no better success, and at length gave over the attempt to capture the elusive scout.
When Snaky Pete and his band, with their woman prisoner, reached the camp at Poplar Bluffs, Tom Molloy and Pool Clayton, with their strife and bickering, had disrupted the band left there, and were on the point of settling the trouble by a free-for-all fight.
“You’ll be int’rested in some one there,” Snaky Pete had said to Pizen Jane.
That she was interested was proved by the outcry she made as her eyes fell on Pool Clayton.
“So you’re here, Bruce, jes’ as I expected to find ye?” she sputtered. “Right here with these pizen skunks, after you writ to me that you had fell into the hands of a fake Buffler Bill, who was a road agent, and that he was holdin’ you a pris’ner, and was likely to murder ye! What did you mean by writin’ that pack o’ lies to yer own mother?”
Pool Clayton’s face grew as red as a beet. He looked at Snaky Pete and the road agents, and then back at the woman who had so suddenly announced that he was her son.
On the ground lay the prisoner, Nick Nomad, who had a twinkle in his eyes now.
“What did ye mean?” she screamed at Pool Clayton. “Here I find this pizen scamp that used to call hisself my husband, and with him I find you! Both o’ ye road agents—the man that was my husband and the boy that was my son!”
Pizen Jane’s voice broke in a sort of pitiful wail, and Nomad saw the tears come into her eyes.
Pool Clayton looked confused and sheepish; Snaky Pete looked angry and humiliated.