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Page 80
Harry and Bodson made a quick, sure job of tying Ashby's wrists with a
cord that Rafe supplied.
"You think you've stopped me, don't you?" snarled the hotel man, wild
with rage.
"We stopped you in time to keep you from shooting down two men who were
at your mercy," retorted Harry sternly.
"What's that?" gasped Rafe.
"They were going to shoot you with your hands in the air," Tom declared.
"That's another of your lies, Reade," snarled the gambler.
"It's you who are doing the lying, Duff," rejoined Tom stiffly. "I
came to my senses just in time to hear you tell Ashby to kill one man
while you killed the other."
"So that was the game, was it?" said Jeff.
"No, it wasn't," snapped Jim Duff.
"Shut up," ordered Jeff unbelievingly. "Duff, we've seen enough of you
to-night to know that an Apache has ten times as much honor as you have,
and a rattlesnake has twenty times as much decency. You lying,
miserable, white-livered, smooth-tongued, poisonous reptile in human
form. If you open your mouth to say another word you'll have me so wild
that I'll pull the trigger of this automatic before I intend to do so."
"Thank goodness you had become conscious too, Harry!" breathed Tom
fervently. "I don't believe I could have knocked both men over in time
to prevent a killing. I managed to get my hands free just in time to
get on the job."
"I had known for some moments what was going on around me," Hazelton
replied. "But I was lying with my eyes closed, and keeping mighty
quiet. I was trying to hear your breathing, so I could decide whether
you had come to your senses, when all of a sudden you sat up and freed
my hands. Ugh!" he added with disgust, as he reached up and slipped the
remnant of rawhide noose from around his neck.
"What'll we do with this snake and, his weak-minded brother?" asked Jeff
dryly. "Tie 'em up and ship 'em into Paloma?"
"Fire off your revolver two or three times," suggested Tom, who had
caught a faint, far away sound of an automobile. "That may bring a
machine over here."
"You shoot, Rafe," urge Moore. "I'll want to keep my weapon handy for
this crooked card-sharp."
Rafe obligingly emptied one of his revolvers into the air. From a
distance came the honk of an automobile horn, as though in answer to the
signal shots. Soon the noise of an automobile engine became more
distinct. Finally the body of a large car loomed up in the darkness. A
few shouts brought the car to the spot.
"This you, Mr. Reade?" called the joy voice of Superintendent Hawkins.
"And Hazelton, safe, also?"
All five seats in this car were occupied. Six more men had to be
crowded in somehow, after Jim Duff had been tied with his hands behind
him. Most of them had to stand.
"Back to Paloma, as fast as you can go with safety," ordered Mr.
Hawkins, as soon as all were inside. "Gracious, but there'll be a
joyful demonstration back in camp as soon as the good word is received."
As the car sped along over the desert the story was told of how the
pursuit had been made.
It was Mr. Hawkins who had tried to wire from camp into town, calling
for cars and posses to go in pursuit of the raiders.
As Tom had imagined at the outset, the raiders had cut the railroad
telegraph wire. Discovering this, Mr. Hawkins had leaped on to the bare
back of a horse at camp and had covered the distance at a gallop.
Men had been quickly rounded up within the very few minutes that were
needed in getting the cars out and ready to run. There were hundreds of
men in Paloma who had grown to despise Duff and all the evil crew behind
the gambler.
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