Then, turning to the puzzled scout, she exclaimed: “Ed, you’ve got us all wrong. We haven’t eloped. We’ve been kidnaped, one at a time, and have escaped together. Now Red has got to get back to the gridiron for Saturday’s game and I to the bleachers. You are elected to help us. You may get shot and all that, but you’ve got to come along. You’ve been drafted.”
Understanding very little of all this, but game to the last, the scout threw open a cupboard to drag down two huge pistols.
“Then,” he said solemnly, “it’s shootin’ irons. Inherited them from my dad. Never had much use for ’em except to take a crack at a prowlin’ coyote now and then, but I reckon I can hit a tin can at fifty yards mighty nigh every pop. And that’s good enough for coarse work. I’m with you, little half-portion, with you to the end.” Then, as if she were a child, he seized her about the waist and bumped her head against the ceiling.
“Mulligan’s done,” he announced a moment later. “What am I really drafted into? You’ll tell me that, won’t you, over the Mulligan stew and coffee?”
CHAPTER XVI
THE BRANDED BULLET
To inform you that Drew Lane made his escape from a perilous position while the Galloping Ghost was doing his bit would be to waste words. There are times, of course, when it is an officer’s duty to stand his ground and shoot it out with the outlaws who chance to cross his path. This was not one of those times. Drew Lane went for reinforcements. That he did not return in time was an unavoidable misfortune. He was obliged to content himself with turning in a detailed report of the affair together with an accurate description of the individuals who composed the band.
“I’d know that little fellow with the fiery eyes anywhere,” he said to Tom Howe, as he sat at his desk. “His scar marks him if nothing else does.
“But those three fellows that look just alike. Suppose they scatter. How’s a fellow to tell which is which? Clever, I call it. Suppose one is suspected of a stick-up. Suppose he’s put in the ‘show up’ on Sunday morning. Then suppose the victim says: ‘That’s the man.’ But suppose the other two are in the line and the victim says again and yet again: ‘That’s the man.’ And each time he’s seeing a different one. Which of the three will be tried and convicted?”
“There’d be a mix-up,” Tom grinned.
“Sure would.