One was waiting for John
Big Dog, who would never ride by night or day again. This animal the
robbers divested of saddle and bridle and set free. They mounted the
other two with the bag across one pommel, and rode fast and with
discretion through the forest and up a primeval, lonely gorge. Here
the animal that bore Bob Tidball slipped on a mossy boulder and broke
a foreleg. They shot him through the head at once and sat down to
hold a council of flight. Made secure for the present by the tortuous
trail they had travelled, the question of time was no longer so big.
Many miles and hours lay between them and the spryest posse that could
follow. Shark Dodson's horse, with trailing rope and dropped bridle,
panted and cropped thankfully of the grass along the stream in the
gorge. Bob Tidball opened the sack, drew out double handfuls of the
neat packages of currency and the one sack of gold and chuckled with
the glee of a child.
"Say, you old double-decked pirate," he called joyfully to Dodson,
"you said we could do it--you got a head for financing that knocks
the horns off of anything in Arizona."
"What are we going to do about a hoss for you, Bob? We ain't got long
to wait here. They'll be on our trail before daylight in the
mornin'."
"Oh, I guess that cayuse of yourn'll carry double for a while,"
answered the sanguine Bob.
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