“What are you going to do with him?” asked Yorky, with plain dissatisfaction.
“I'm going to take him down to Gimlet Butte. Arizona and Wyoming and Texas will have to scrap it out for him there.”
“When, you get him there,” Yorky said significantly.
“Yes, when I get him there,” answered the Texan blandly, carefully oblivious of the other's implication.
The moon was beginning to show itself over a hill before the Texan and Siegfried took the road with their captive. Fraser had carelessly let drop a remark to the effect that they would spend the night at the Dillon ranch.
His watch showed eleven o'clock before they reached the ranch, but he pushed on without turning in and did not stop until they came to the Howard place.
They roused Alec from sleep, and he cooked them a post-midnight supper, after which he saddled his cow pony, buckled on his belt, and took down his old rifle from the rack.
“I'll jog along with you lads and see the fun,” he said.
Their prisoner had not eaten. The best he could do was to gulp down some coffee, for he was in a nervous chill of apprehension. Every gust of wind seemed to carry to him the patter of pursuit. The hooting of an owl sent a tremor through him.
“Don't you reckon we had better hurry?” he had asked with dry lips more than once, while the others were eating.