Ready for emergencies, they quietly watched the two dark forms and patiently waited. Their vigil was short. An unmistakable, smothered oath came to their ears. The guarded, booming growl of the bigger man, became more insistent. They saw the slighter shape dismount and, presently the “tang” of a tightly stretched barbed-wire gate being released and drawn aside sounded sharply in the stillness. The big shape, still mounted, slowly disappeared into the shadows beyond, the smaller one resuming his seat in the saddle and waiting at the opening.
Feverishly the Sergeant weighed the situation. “Scotty” Robbins—and, without a doubt, it must be he—possessed an extraordinarily fast horse, he reflected. Even if he was able, under the guise of Shorty, to range near enough to close, it was not particularly easy to pull a good rider like Scotty out of the saddle. He would be sure to raise a loud outcry at the first attempt, and thus warn Fisk. If he once got away, it would be futile to follow him in the dark.
The emergency caused a wild thought to flash into Benton’s fertile brain. Why not rope him? Long years of constant practise had rendered him clever with a lariat. It was worth trying. The tumble would insure Scotty’s partial silence anyway, and Gallagher could fix the rest, leaving him free to tackle Big George, whom he knew it would be suicidal to ever call on to surrender at close range.
Clutching his companion, he whispered tensely: “Now they’re split! I’ll have to nail Mister Scotty quick, before he gets a chance to make a breakaway. That roan o’ his—‘Duster’—can run anythin’ around here off’n its laigs. I’m a-goin’ to try ropin’ him. Let’s have that rawhide riata o’ yores—that ‘black-jack’ o’ mine kinks. Get yore handkerchief ready, an’ run out an’ cram it into his kisser an’ choke th’ —— if he starts in to holler. Here, Barney!”—he slipped the latter a pair of handcuffs—“hold these. Keep ’em open an’ give ’em to me when I say. Now look out! Gaffle him quick when I jerk him off’n th’ perch.”
Leading Shorty’s horse slowly and heedfully back through the brush, the way they had come, he mounted and, after carefully shaking out a loop to his liking in the riata, which he trailed in readiness with back-flung hand, he circled around until he reached the clear space between the fence and the brush.
Suddenly his borrowed mount nickered. Scotty Robbins started nervously at the sound, but a sigh of relief escaped him as the shape of the familiar white horse became revealed to his vision.
“Oh, Shorty—that yu’?” he called out, in a loud, tense undertone.
There was no answer from the rider, who approached near—nearer.
Suddenly. “Swis-s-s-s,” came the sibilant hiss of something through the air, and the loop of a riata flopped fairly over his head and shoulders. Taken utterly by surprise, he uttered a frightened squawk and, with a quick upward thrust of his arm, endeavored to free himself of the encumbrance. The movement was too late. That single squawk was his limit. For the other, wheeling his horse on the instant, rammed in the spurs, and the next moment there came a terrible jerk that tore his clutching hands from the saddle-horn and flung him to the ground with all the breath knocked out of his body.
The startled, riderless horse gave a violent jump at the unexpected occurrence and tried to run, but the trailing lines under its feet causing its head to be yanked down severely at every step, from customary experience it soon pulled up, snorting nervously.