If Mannix expected any resistance from Rathburn he soon found that none was to materialize. The deputy, a short, rather stout man of perhaps thirty-nine, with bronzed features, clear, brown eyes, and a protruding jaw covered with a stubble of reddish-brown beard, was nevertheless wary of his prisoner. He had not yet obtained Rathburn’s gun, and he recognized the unmistakable signs of a seasoned gunman in the lounging but graceful postures of his prisoner, in the way he moved his right hand, in the alertness of his eye. He frowned, for Rathburn was smiling. There was a quality to that smile which was not lost upon the doughty officer.

“I take it you’ve got sense enough to come along easylike,” he said, with just a hint of doubt in his voice.

“Yes, I’ve been known to show some sense, sheriff; now that’s a fact.”

“I’ll have to ask you for your gun,” said the deputy grimly.

“I’ve never been known to hand over my gun, sheriff,” drawled Rathburn. “Now that’s another fact.”

Again the tension in the room was high. Others than Mannix, and probably Carlisle, had readily discerned in the gray-eyed stranger a certain menacing prowess which is much respected where weapons are the rule in unexpected emergencies. The crowd backed to the wall.

The deputy wet his lips, and his face grew a shade 115 paler. Then suddenly he went for his gun, as Rathburn dropped, like a shot, to the floor. There came the crack of Carlisle’s pistol and a laugh from Rathburn. The deputy, gun in hand, stared at Rathburn who rose quickly to his feet. Then he thought to cover him. Rathburn raised his hands while Carlisle returned his own smoking weapon to its holster. Mannix turned and glared at Carlisle in perplexity.

“I don’t know what his game is, Mannix; but he could have drawn down on you in a wink and shot you in your tracks if he’d wanted to,” said Carlisle.

“So you were taking the play in your own hands,” Mannix accused.

The deputy looked at Rathburn angrily. Then he advanced and took the prisoner’s six-shooter from him. He brought handcuffs out of his pockets.

Rathburn’s face went white. “If what Carlisle says is true, it doesn’t look as if I was trying to get away, does it, sheriff?” he asked coldly.

Mannix was thoughtful for a moment. “Well, come along,” he ordered, thrusting the steel bracelets back into his pocket.

“I’ll go with you,” Carlisle volunteered.

“That’s up to you,” snapped out the deputy. “I ain’t asking you to.”

The trio left the place as the spectators gazed after them in wonder. There was a hum of excited conversation as the deputy and his prisoner and Carlisle passed through the door.

No word was spoken on the way to the small, two-room, one-story structure which served as a detention place for persons under arrest until they could be transferred to the county jail in the town where the railroad touched. Petty offenders served their sentences there, however.

In the little front office of the jail, Rathburn looked with interest at some posters on the walls. 116 One in particular claimed his attention, and he read it twice while the deputy was getting some keys and calling to the jailer, who evidently was on the other side of the barred door where the few cells and the “tank” were.

This is what Rathburn read:

REWARD

Two thousand dollars will be paid for the capture of the bandits who are responsible for the robberies of Dixie Mine messengers in the last few months.

Dixie Milling & Mining Co.,
George Sautee, Manager.

Rathburn now knew exactly what Carlisle had meant when he had referred to the Dixie pay-roll taking wings. He had, however, suspected it. The holdup of the truck driver also was explained. Rathburn smiled. It was a peculiar ruse for the mines manager to resort to. Could not the pay-roll be sent to the mines under armed guard? Rathburn’s eyes were dreamy when he looked at the deputy.

“All right, in you go,” said Mannix, as the jailer unlocked the heavy, barred door from the inside.

He led Rathburn to one of the single cells, of which there were six on one side of the jail room proper.

“Maybe you’ll be ready to talk in the morning,” he said, as he locked his prisoner in.

“Morning might be too late,” Rathburn observed, taking tobacco and papers from his shirt pocket.

“What do you mean by that?” Mannix asked sharply.

“I might change my mind.”

“About talking, eh? Well, we’ll find a way to make you change it back again.”

“You’re a grateful cuss,” said Rathburn, grinning.

Mannix scowled. It was plain he was not sure of his man, although he was trying to convince himself that he was.

“I don’t get you,” he said growlingly.

“No? Didn’t you hear that fellow Carlisle say I saved your life by not drawing?”

“He’d have got you if you’d tried to draw. That’s what he thought you was going to do. You saved your skin by grabbing the floor.”

Rathburn wet the paper of his cigarette and sealed the end. “I’m wondering,” he mused, as he snapped a match into flame, with a thumb nail and lit the weed.

“It’s about time,” said the deputy grimly.

“I’m wondering,” said Rathburn, in a soft voice, exhaling a thin streamer of smoke, “if he’d have got me.”

Mannix grunted, looked at him curiously, and then turned abruptly on his heel and left. Rathburn could not see the door, but he heard the big key grate in the lock, and then the jail room echoed to the clang of hard metal and the door swung shut again.

Rathburn sat down on the bunk which was to serve as his bed. He smoked his brown-paper cigarette slowly and with great relish while he stared, not through the bars to where the dim light of a lamp showed, but straight at the opposite steel wall of his cell. His eyes were thoughtful, dreamy, his brow was puckered.

“An’ there’s that,” he muttered as he threw away the stub of his smoke and began to roll another. “Somebody’s been playing the Dixie Queen for a meal ticket. That sign said ‘robberies.’ That means more’n one. The truck driver was the last. Two thousand reward. An’ me headed for the desert 118 where I belong. What stopped me? I reckon I know.”

He smiled grimly as he remembered the insolent challenge in Carlisle’s eyes and the reference to the bath.

After a time Rathburn stretched out on the bunk, pulled his hat over his face, and dozed.

He sat up with a catlike movement as a persistent tapping on the bars of his cell reached his ears. Blinking in the half light he saw Carlisle’s dark features.

“Well, now’s your chance to smoke me up good an’ plenty an’ get away with it,” said Rathburn cheerfully. “I’m shy my gun which the sheriff has borrowed.”

“You figure he’s just borrowed it?” sneeringly inquired Carlisle.

Rathburn rose and surveyed his visitor. “I reckon I’ve got to tolerate you,” he drawled. “I can’t pick my company in here.”

“I’ve got your number,” snarlingly replied Carlisle in a low voice.

Rathburn sauntered close to the bars, rolling a cigarette.

“If you have, Carlisle, you’ve got a winning number,” he said evenly.

“Whatever your play is here, I dunno,” said Carlisle; “but you won’t get away with it as easy as you did over the range in Dry Lake.”

Rathburn’s eyes never flickered as he coolly lit his cigarette with a steady hand. “You’re plumb full of information, eh, Carlisle?”

“I was over there an’ heard about how you stuck up that joint an’ tried to blame it on some kid by the name of Lamy,” said Carlisle, watching Rathburn closely.

“You sure that was the way of it?” asked Rathburn casually.

“No,” replied the other. “I know the kid stuck up the joint an’ you took the blame to keep him under cover. I don’t know your reasons, but I guess you don’t want the facts known. You broke jail. They ain’t forgot that over in Dry Lake. There’s a reward out for you over there, an I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some money on your head in Arizona, Coyote!”

Rathburn’s eyes were points of red between narrowed lids.

“The Coyote!” said Carlisle in a hoarse voice of triumph. “An’ the way it looks I’m the only one hereabouts that knows it.”

“I told you you was plumb full of information,” said Rathburn.

“The Coyote has a bit of a record, they tell me,” Carlisle leered. “There’s more’n one sheriff would pay a pretty price to get him safe, eh?”

“Just what’s your idea in telling me all this, Carlisle; why don’t you tell what you know to Mannix, say?”

“Maybe I’m just teasing you along.”

“Not a chance, Carlisle. I know your breed.”

The other’s face darkened, and his eyes glittered as he peered in through the bars.

“What’s your breed?” he asked sneeringly.

“I don’t have to tell you that, Carlisle. You know!” said Rathburn with a taunting laugh.

Carlisle struggled with his anger for a brief spell. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“I ain’t going to poke at you in a cage,” he said in a more civil tone; “an’ I ain’t going to tell anybody what I know. Remember that.”

“I ain’t the forgetting kind,” Rathburn flung after him as he walked swiftly away.

Again Rathburn sat on the edge of the bunk and smoked and thought. After a time he went to sleep. The opening of his cell door woke him. It was Mannix.

“Come to let me out, sheriff?” inquired Rathburn sleepily.

The deputy looked at him keenly, opened the cage, and motioned to him to follow. Rathburn went with him out into the little office. It was broad day. Mannix picked up a pistol from his desk and extended it to Rathburn.

“Here’s your gun, Rathburn. You can go,” he said, pressing his lips close together.

“Well, now, sheriff, that’s right kind of you,” Rathburn drawled, concealing his astonishment.

“Don’t thank me,” snapped out Mannix. “This gentleman asked me to set you loose.”

For the first time Rathburn looked squarely at the other man in the office––a thin man, with a cropped mustache, beady eyes, and a narrow face.

The man was regarding him intently, and there seemed to be an amused expression in his eyes. He turned away from Rathburn’s gaze.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman,” said Rathburn agreeably.

“That’s George Sautee, manager of the Dixie Queen,” said the deputy with a shrug.