“How did you square him then?”
“Politics,” came the sententious answer. “And I guess I put one over him at that. Somebody’s goin’ to git a dangnation throw-down, an’ don’t you forgit it.”
An hour later they descended at the livery barn. The sky had cleared, and they had ridden fast under the starlight. Roderick looked the ex-sheriff squarely in the face.
“Now, Jim Rankin, the next move in the game is going to be mine. Get your three fours hitched up at once, and bring them down one by one as fast as they are ready, to the Major’s. We load that ore tonight, and start for the railroad before daylight. Do you get me, my friend?”
Jim Rankin for a moment looked into Roderick’s eyes.
“I guess I git you, Mr. Warfield,” he replied, as he meekly turned away toward the stables where the twelve powerful draught horses had been held in preparedness for a week past.
CHAPTER XXIII.—THE FIGHT ON THE ROAD
DAYLIGHT had not yet broken when the three four-horse wagons were loaded and ready for the road. Not a moment had been lost after Roderick’s arrival at the Major’s. That night he had had a grim glimpse of what western lawlessness among the mountains might mean, and had speedily convinced the Major that his policy of instant departure was the wise one. Bud Bledsoe and his gang would rest at least one day, perhaps two or three days, after their devilish exploit with the sheep-herders, and when they came reconnoitering around the blockhouse in which the ore was stored it would be to find the rich treasure gone. The teams by that time would be at Walcott, or at least well on the way to their destination.