“That’s a chance we don’t want to take,” agreed Scotty. “If he comes, what’ll I do, Slim?”
“Stop him, Scotty.”
“The proper thing to have done would have been to arrest him on the evidence we’ve already got,” said Chuck.
“Mebby you’re right,” agreed Slim. “But there’s two ways of lookin’ at it. If he got one of the millions you talk about, arrestin’ him won’t get it back. He won’t run away and leave his ranch; so we don’t need to be in a big hurry.”
“That’s sense,” agreed Scotty. “I’ll see yuh later.”
He turned his horse and rode back toward the south, while Slim Caldwell and Chuck Ring continued on toward Red Arrow.
Scotty McKay didn’t like the idea of spending the day out there, standing guard over the body of a dead horse, but he realized the wisdom of protecting their main exhibit. He had turned back just short of the old wagon bridge across the Red Arrow River and headed back toward Curlew Spur. The going was very rough through the brushy hills, but Scotty was not in any great hurry.
He was about five hundred yards from the end of the big cut, following fairly close to the right-of-way fence, when a bullet droned so close to his ear that he almost fell off his horse. The hills echoed back the rattling report of the rifle, but there was no question in Scotty’s mind as to which direction the bullet came from. He slid quickly off his saddle, jerked his rifle from the boot, and ducked low in the tangle of brush. The horse turned and trotted back along the fence, hooked the reins around a snag, and stopped short.
Scotty squatted on his heels and debated thoughtfully.
“Not over two hundred yards away,” he decided. “Report of gun was plenty audible.”