He held out his hand, but the deputy, shifting his position, seemed to overlook the grimy proffered palm.

“You fellows know that you’re wanted by the law,” he said, frowning on them.

A grim meaning rose in the vacuous eye of Lovel; Isaacs caressed his diamond pin, smiling in a sickly fashion; McNamara’s wandering stare fixed and grew unhumanly bright; Ufert openly dropped his hand on his gun-butt and stood sullenly defiant.

“You know that you’re wanted, and you know why,” went on Glendin, “but I’ve decided to give you a chance to prove that you’re white men and useful citizens.  Nash has already told you what we want.  It’s work for seven men against one, but that one man is apt to give you all plenty to do.  If you are—­successful”—­he stammered a little over the right word—­“what you have done in the past will be forgotten.  Hold up your right hands and repeat after me.”

And they repeated the oath after him in a broken, drawling chorus, stumbling over the formal, legal phraseology.

He ended, and then:  “Nash, you’re in charge of the gang.  Do what you want to with them, and remember that you’re to get Bard back in town unharmed—­if possible.”

Butch Conklin smiled, and the same smile spread grimly from face to face among the gang.  Evidently this point had already been elucidated to them by Nash, who now mustered them out of the house and assembled them on their horses in the street below.

“Which way do we travel?” asked Shorty Kilrain, reining close beside the leader, as though he were anxious to disestablish any relationship with the rest of the party.

“Two ways,” answered Nash.  “Of course I don’t know what way Bard headed, because he’s got the girl with him, but I figure it this way:  if a tenderfoot knows any part of the range at all, he’ll go in that direction after he’s in trouble.  I’ve seen it work out before.  So I think that Bard may have ridden straight for the old Drew place on the other side of the range.  I know a short cut over the hills; we can reach there by morning.  Kilrain, you’ll go there with me.

“It may be that Bard will go near the old place, but not right to it.  Chances may be good that he’ll put up at some place near the old ranchhouse, but not right on the spot.  Jerry Wood, he’s got a house about tour or five miles to the north of Drew’s old ranch.  Butch, you take your men and ride for Wood’s place.  Then switch south and ride for Partridge’s store; if we miss him at Drew’s old house we’ll go on and join you at Partridge’s store and then double back.  He’ll be somewhere inside that circle and Eldara, you can lay to that.  Now, boys, are your hosses fresh?”

They were.

“Then ride, and don’t spare the spurs.  Hoss flesh is cheaper’n your own hides.”

The cavalcade separated and galloped in two directions through the town of Eldara.

CHAPTER XXXIII