Nell lowered her gun. Dick grabbed the key, the grin on his face demoniac, and leaped across the floor on the balls of his feet. In a flash he had the door open, was inside, the door closed and the spring lock snapped. Nell thrust the gun back into its holster. Came a thunderous knock upon the door.
“Girls!” shouted Hunt, “may we come in?”
Betty and Nell looked at each other. The latter sat down on the bed. Betty dropped back into her chair.
“Of course you may come in, Ford,” she said in a voice that, if not unshaken, seemed calm to the ears of the men.
Hunt and Hurley, both splashed with mud, appeared at the open door.
“Pack a bag, Betty,” said her brother. “The water is backing up into the town, and although we don’t believe it will rise high, it may come in over the lower floor. It won’t be pleasant here to-night. Joe suggests that we take you both up to his office at the Great Hope. That can be made comfortable for you until we see just how bad a time Canyon Pass is in for.”
“If you say so,” said Betty in a low voice. “Will you go, Nell?”
“Sure,” declared the other girl.
She thought that probably anything was better for Betty than to remain here. In ten minutes they set forth, hurrying down and out of the hotel. Sheriff Blaney, and a red-faced man whom Betty remembered having seen before on the Hoskins trail hunting a fugitive, was on the porch.
“Derned funny where that Dick Beckworth has holed up,” Blaney was saying. “But he can’t get out of town to-night, that’s sure.”