"Much obliged. Oh, there's another thing you can do for me, Quint. You can go to the Fort and tell Edwards, with my compliments, that he's wasting time trying to smoke me out of the 'Breathing Cave.' Also tell him I'm sorry I had to take another one of his horses."
"So Edwards thinks you're in the Cave?" asked the old man, chuckling. "Sure, I'll be glad to get word to him. I wish he'd been mixed up with Barney. I don't know a man I hate more'n I do Hiram Edwards. Yes, I'll sure let him know."
"Thank you. Good-bye." And with a wave of his hand, Rogers dashed away through the woods.
For a while, he smiled as he pictured to himself the scene between the pompous colonel and the little old man; then became grave as he thought of the mission upon which he was riding.
Though Barney Landon had been a desperado, he had been accused by Zeb Cross of lifting some cattle—and wrongly. Cross, however, lured by a reward, had persuaded Hooper and Bender to waylay the outlaw. This they had done, wounding him grievously. But Landon had managed to ride to where Rogers was spending the night, and died in his arms, after which the outlaw hid his body so that no one could collect the reward.
Before his pal's death, he made him a pledge, and in attempting to carry it out, traveled to the city of Keno, where he had been arrested by twenty Mounted Scouts, but only after he had shot down ten others.
And now, at his first opportunity, this man, whose mind and ideas were so perverted that he preferred a life of crime to one of honor, was taking up the quest again.
Nearest of any of the three was Al Bender's ranch, and thither Rogers rode, recking not that it was broad daylight.
To his delight, Bender was standing in the doorway as the outlaw dashed up.
"Your time has come, Al Bender!" he hissed. And, before the terror-stricken man could escape, Rogers put a bullet through his heart.