Part 36 (1/2)

”We turn here toward Walton's, Judge,” suggested Billy, when the jurist continued to ride straight ahead.

The judge pulled up.

”I'm not going to Walton's!” he cried aloud. ”I'm not going, I tell you! You can't make me! You can't.”

His voice broke at the last word. He threw his arms aloft in a wild gesture. The features of the face he turned toward Billy were contorted with emotion. He gibbered and mowed at them in the moon-light. He looked like an inmate of Bedlam. He was certainly in a bad way, was Judge Driver.

Suddenly he lost his head. He clapped heels to his horse's flanks in an effort to escape. But both Billy Wingo and Riley Tyler had been waiting for precisely such a move ever since leaving Golden Bar. Two ropes shot out simultaneously. One fastened on the red-and-white pinto's neck, the other settled round the Judge's shoulders. The paint pony stopped abruptly. The judge flew backward from the saddle and hit the snow on the back of his neck.

The three friends dismounted and gathered around the judge. Riley loosened his rope. The judge lay still and gasped and crowed. The wind had been considerably knocked out of him. When he sat up, he was promptly sick, very sick. The paroxysm shook him from head to heels.

It was half an hour before he was able to stand on his feet without support. The three boosted him into the saddle, mounted their own horses and proceeded along the draw.

Whenever the judge made as if to check his horse, which he did more than once, Billy Wingo would crowd his horse forward and kick the pinto. Their progress may be said to have been fairly regular.

A mile from the ranch house they climbed the shelving side of the draw and rode across the flat to where a straggling growth of pine and spruce made a black, pear-shaped blot along the smooth white slope of a saddle-backed hill. The tail of this evergreen plantation ran out across the flat from the base of the hill almost to the edge of the draw they had just quitted. A tall spruce, towering high above his fellows, formed the tip, as it were, of the stem of the pear.

Beyond and below this spruce, where the draw met lower ground and lost its ident.i.ty as a draw, was the Walton ranch house. On the flat the evergreens barred the four riders from the eyes of any one watching from the house.

The four men reached the trees, rode in among them. Three of them dismounted and tied their horses. The fourth remained in the saddle.

Said Billy Wingo to the fourth:

”Get down.”

The judge got down. Swiftly his hands were tied behind his back, and his eyes were thoroughly blindfolded with his own silk handkerchief.

”Now, boys,” said Billy, lowering his voice, ”I guess we know what to do. You, Judge, won't have to say anything, but if anybody else thinks he has to say anything, he's got to do it in a whisper, and a skinny whisper at that. Let's go.”

As Billy uttered the last low words Guerilla Melody seized the judge's right arm and forced him into motion. With Riley Tyler leading the judge's mount, the three men scuffled in among the trees on the back trail.

Billy Wingo stood silently in his tracks until the trio were out of earshot, then he padded to the spruce and halted behind it. He removed his overcoat. From a voluminous pocket he took what appeared to be a roll of cloth. He shook out the roll and discovered the common or garden variety of cotton nights.h.i.+rt, size fifty.

”If whoever's in the house can pick me out from the snow after I'm wearing this, I'll give his eyes credit,” he muttered, pulling on the garment in question over his head.

He b.u.t.toned the nights.h.i.+rt with meticulous care, fished a washed flour sack from a hip pocket and pulled it over his head. A minute or two later he was joined by Riley Tyler.

”If I didn't know it was you,” whispered Riley in a delighted hiss, ”I'd be scared out of a year's growth. Those eyeholes are plumb gashly.”

”I expect,” said Billy grimly. ”Get on your outfit. I guess you ain't needed, but we can't afford to take any chances.”

Riley Tyler threw off his blanket capote, dragged from an inner pocket a disguise similar to the sheriff's and hurriedly put it on.

”Don't come till you see the signal,” cautioned Billy, ”and if you hear any shots before I give the signal, stay right here where the cover's good and drop anybody you see running away. Y'understand?”

”You bet.”

”Judge swallow it all right?”

”Down to the pole. He thinks we're all three with him.”

Billy nodded. ”Better move along the draw about twenty yards,” was his parting order. ”You can't see the side the cedars are on from here.”