He looked up sharply as the other made his demand.
"You're offering ten thousand dollars reward for the| capture of the
Lightfoot gang, Mr. McFarlane?"
"That's so."
The rancher's regard had deepened. There was a curious light shining in his blue eyes. It was half speculative, half suggestive of growing excitement. It was wholly full of a burning interest.
"Say, I'd just like to know how I stand." Bob laughed that short hard laugh which bears no trace of mirth. "You see, I can put you wise. I can lead you right on to their camp so you can get 'em—while they're sleeping, or any other old way. Oh, yes, I'm ready to play my part right up to the limit. It don't matter a thing. I'm not just here to tell you about things. I'm here to lead you to that camp, and take a hand in the hanging when you get busy. You see, I'm a whole hogger. But I want to know how things stand about that ten thousand dollar reward. Do I get it? If I get shot up does my wife get it? And when it's paid, do you shout about it? Does the gang down Orrville way need to know who it was they forgot to hand the name of Judas to when he was christened? I don't care a cuss on my own account. It's——"
But Dug McFarlane broke in upon the bitter raillery. He had no thought for the man or his feelings, just for one moment it seemed to him that some sort of miracle had happened. And his every thought and feeling was absorbed in it. Here, after five years of vain effort, here, after five years of depredations which had almost threatened the cattle industry in the district with complete crippling, here was a man who could lead them to the raiders' hiding-place, could show them how the hanging they all so cordially desired could be brought about. It was stupendous. It was—yes, it was miraculous.
His first impulse had been to give way to the excitement which stirred him, but he restrained himself.
"Ten thousand dollars will be paid by me to the man, or his nominee, privately, if his information leads to the hanging of this gang. Say, boy, we ain't goin' to split hairs or play any low games on this lay out. I'm a rich man, an' ten thousand dollars ain't a circumstance so we break up this gang. If we only get one of 'em or part of 'em, the man who shows me their hiding-place, and leads me to it, that man—or his wife—gets my ten thousand dollars. You can have it in writing. But my word goes any old time. Now you can get busy and hand me the proposition."
The steady eyes, the emphatic tones of this big, straight-dealing rancher silenced the last doubt in Bob's lesser mind. He was out to do this dirty work with all his might in the interest of the woman who had inspired it. But he had scarcely been prepared for such simple methods as this man displayed. He had felt that it was for him to barter, to scheme, to secure the dollars Effie coveted. A deep sigh escaped him. It may have been relief. It may have been of regret that he must stand before so straight-dealing a personality claiming his thirty pieces of silver.
He passed one hand across his perspiring brow and thrust his prairie hat farther back upon his head. He would have preferred, however, to have drawn it down over his eyes to escape the searching gaze from the honest depths of the other's. Suddenly, with a gesture of impatience, he began to talk rapidly.