"Say, that's a good notion. If I was a buyer I'd pay ten bucks more after you'd put him through that circus stuff."
"Which is Miller's saddle?" When it was pointed out to him, Dave examined it and pretended to disapprove. "Too heavy. Lend me a lighter one, can't you?"
"Sure. Here's three or four. Help yourself."
The wrangler moved into the stable to attend to his work.
Dave cinched, swung to the saddle, and rode to the gate of the corral.
Two men were coming in, and by the sound of their voices were quarreling.
They stepped aside to let him pass, one on each side of the gate, so
that it was necessary to ride between them.
They recognized the pinto at the same moment Dave did them. On the heels of that recognition came another.
Doble ripped out an oath and a shout of warning. "It's Sanders!"
A gun flashed as the pony jumped to a gallop. The silent night grew noisy with shots, voices, the clatter of hoofs. Twice Dave fired answers to the challenges which leaped out of the darkness at him. He raced across the bridge spanning the Platte and for a moment drew up on the other side to listen for sounds which might tell him whether he would be pursued. One last solitary revolver shot disturbed the stillness.
The rider grinned. "Think he'd know better than to shoot at me this far."
He broke his revolver, extracted the empty shells, and dropped them to the street. Then he rode up the long hill toward Highlands, passed through that suburb of the city, and went along the dark and dusty road to the shadows of the Rockies silhouetted in the night sky.