Now Nell rode without touching the bridle reins. She swung the whip and cracked it sharply. In the other hand she gripped a six-shooter of practical size and weight.
“What is the matter with that crazy creature?” asked Betty.
Hurley merely laughed. Nell Blossom approached at a wild gallop. Men appeared at the doors of various stores and saloons along the street and yelled their delight.
“Ye-yip! Yip-py-yip!” shrieked the appreciative audience. “Oh, you Nell! Ye-yow! Git out o’ town!”
The girl, her face glowing, her hair flying from under her hat, her whole figure electric with life and abundance of spirit, rode faster and faster. As she approached the front of the Grub Stake she saw the slouching figure of its proprietor backed against the wall by the door, smoking. He grinned evilly at the rider.
Nell pressed the trigger. Five staccato shots whistled skyward. The sixth ruffled the lank hair on Boss Tolley’s head and splintered the door frame just above it!
The divekeeper dodged and crouched, as though expecting another bullet. He almost slunk into his barroom. Then he realized that the girl had made a show of him and was riding on, applauded by the laughter and shrieks of the onlookers.
He whirled, and, lifting both hands, shook the clenched fists after the flying Nell. He was almost apoplectic with rage. He burst forth:
“You crazy, derned hoptoad of a gal! Somebody ought to grab you off that animal. Shootin’ at folks thataway! Is that what you done when you drove poor Dick Beckworth over the edge of the Overhang?”
The incoming trio of riders—Hurley, Hunt and Betty—were almost opposite the Grub Stake as Tolley emitted these words. In a flash the mining man was out of the saddle and standing in front of the startled Tolley.