Oh, You Tex!

Yorky was nervous, but decided. "I ain't a-goin' to," he said, and the revolver came to a businesslike position, its nose pointed straight for Roberts.

The gyrations of the rope became more active and the figures it formed more complex.

"Quit yore foolin', Tex, an' get down to cases. Dad-gum yore hide, a fellow never can tell what you honest-to-God mean."

The rope snaked forward over the revolver and settled on the wrist of the jailer. It tightened, quicker than the eye could follow. Jack jerked the lariat sideways and plunged forward. A bullet crashed into the wall of the dugout.

The cowboy's shoulder pinned the little man against the bolted door. One hand gave a quick wrench to the wrist of the right arm and the revolver clattered to the puncheon floor. The two hands of the jailer, under pressure, came together. Round them the rope wound swiftly.

"I've got you, Yorky. No use strugglin'. I don't want to start that misery in yore shoulder," warned Jack.

The little saddler, tears of mortification in his eyes, relaxed from his useless efforts. Jack had no intention of humiliating him and he proceeded casually to restore his self-respect.

"You made a good fight, Yorky,--a blamed good fight. I won out by a trick, or I never could 'a' done it. Listen, old-timer. I plumb had to play this low-down trick on you. Homer Dinsmore saved Miss Wadley from the 'Paches. He treated her like a white man an' risked his life for her. She's my friend. Do you reckon I'd ought to let him hang?"

"Whyn't you tell me all that?" complained the manhandled jailer.

"Because you're such a tender-hearted old geezer, Yorky. Like as not you would 'a' thrown open the door an' told me to take him. You had to make a fight to keep him so they couldn't say you were in cahoots with me. I'm goin' to jail for this an' I don't want comp'ny."

Jack trussed up his friend comfortably with the slack of the rope so that he could move neither hands nor feet.

From the nail upon which the two keys hung the jail-breaker selected one. He shot back the bolts of the inner door and turned the key.