A crowd of armed men beat the willows on both banks for a distance of a mile both up and down the stream wherever there was cover. No trace of the outlaw could be found. Posses on horseback took up the search. These posses not only rode up and down the river. They scoured the mesa on the other bank all day. When night fell Houck was still at large.
CHAPTER XLI
IN A LADY’S CHAMBER
The drama of the hold-up and of the retribution that had fallen upon the bandits had moved as swiftly as though it had been rehearsed. There had been no wasted words, no delay in the action. But in life the curtain does not always drop at the right moment. There was anticlimax in Bear Cat after the guns had ceased to boom. In the reaction after the strain the tongues of men and women were loosened. Relief expressed itself in chatter. Everybody had some contributing incident to tell.
Into the clatter Dud Hollister’s voice cut sharply. “Some one get Doc Tuckerman, quick.”
He was bending over the wounded man on the platform, trying to stop the flow of blood from a little hole in the side.
Mollie stepped toward him. “Carry Art into the hotel. I’ll have a bed ready for him time you get there. Anybody else hurt?”
“Some one said Ferril was shot.”