“That’s right,” pursued Blake, a savage frown gathering about his brows, “it was Cap’n Lawless, of the Forty Thieves, an’ no one else. I know the whelp by sight, but, if I hadn’t known him, he’d have settled my doubts, fer he told me himself who he was.”
“I thought Lawless and his gang had been chased out of the country for good,” said Gentleman Jim. “Buffalo Bill and his pards gave him the worst of it, and we had all made up our minds, here in Sun Dance, that Lawless would profit by the lesson.”
“Well, he didn’t,” continued Blake. “He’s on deck like always, an’ up ter his old tricks. He lifted my bag o’ dust, my guns, what stuff I had in my clothes, and my horse. I was held a pris’ner all last night, in the outlaws’ camp by Medicine Bluff. This morning that maverick steer was roped and thrown, and I was tied to the brute’s back. Lawless told me I was going to Sun Dance, and that I was to carry a message to some enemies of his. It was a written message, and consequently it wouldn’t make much difference whether I reached Sun Dance alive or dead.”
A fierce scowl returned to Blake’s face.
“I’m hopin’,” he went on, “that I’ll live to play even with that whelp an’ cutthroat. He’s as cold-blooded as a channel catfish, an’ as murderous as a Sioux Injun. If I ever git a chance at him——” Blake finished with a vengeful glare and a tense gripping of his big, sinewy hands.
“You say the message is written?” queried Gentleman Jim.
“Yes,” answered Blake. “If I got here alive I was ter ask fer a gambler called Gentleman Jim.”
“Which is me,” said the gambler. “So far as I know, Lawless hasn’t ever crossed my trail. Why he makes himself my enemy is more than I can tell.”
“The message ain’t fer you, Gentleman Jim,” said Blake.
“But you just said——”