Merle listened with flushed cheeks to the sounds behind, and caught at last the first streaks of dawn in the eastern sky.
Twenty against three!
He knew how that would go.
"Don't build thy hopes on what's behind us," suddenly said Old Broadbrim. "It's a sea voyage or death for thee in the saddle. In case we are overtaken and my papers are not respected by the men of Ranch Robin, I will leave thee here dead with a bullet in thy brain."
Merle did not reply; but his face grew pale, for he knew the nerve of the man who had just spoken.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
THE WOMAN WITH THE REVOLVER.
Let us go back a step in our story of crime and its detection, and keep track of another character—Belle Demona.
We saw her at last on her way toward Perth, well mounted and eager.