第79章

"Aw, all right," said Billy."I'll take it an' pass it along to Eddie if I ever meet him, eh?""Now please hurry," she urged."I don't want you to be caught--even if you are a murderer.I wish you weren't though.""I'm not," said Billy; "but de law says I am an' what de law says, goes."He turned toward the doorway with Bridge, calling a goodbye to the woman, but as he stepped out upon the veranda the dust of a fast-moving automobile appeared about a bend in the road a half-mile from the house.

"Too late," he said, turning to Bridge."Here they come!"The woman brushed by them and peered up the road.

"Yes," she said, "it must be them.Lordy! What'll we do?""I'll duck out the back way, that's what I'll do," said Billy.

"It wouldn't do a mite of good," said Mrs.Shorter, with a shake of her head."They'll telephone every farmer within twenty mile of here in every direction, an' they'll get you sure.

Wait! I got a scheme.Come with me," and she turned and bustled through the little parlor, out of a doorway into something that was half hall and half storeroom.There was a flight of stairs leading to the upper story, and she waddled up them as fast as her legs would carry her, motioning the two men to follow her.

In a rear room was a trapdoor in the ceiling.

"Drag that commode under this," she told them."Then climb into the attic, and close the trapdoor.They won't never find you there."Billy pulled the ancient article of furniture beneath the opening, and in another moment the two men were in the stuffy atmosphere of the unventilated loft.Beneath them they heard Mrs.Shorter dragging the commode back to its accustomed place, and then the sound of her footsteps descending the stair.

Presently there came to them the rattling of a motor without, followed by the voices of men in the house.For an hour, half asphyxiated by the closeness of the attic, they waited, and then again they heard the sound of the running engine, diminishing as the machine drew away.

Shortly after, Mrs.Shorter's voice rose to them from below:

"You ken come down now," she said, "they've gone."When they had descended she led them to the kitchen.

"I got a bite to eat ready for you while they was here," she explained."When you've done you ken hide in the barn 'til dark, an' after that I'll have my ol' man take you 'cross to Dodson, that's a junction, an' you'd aughter be able to git away easy enough from there.I told 'em you started for Olathe--there's where they've gone with the two tramps.

"My, but I did have a time of it! I ain't much good at story-tellin' but I reckon I told more stories this arternoon than I ever tole before in all my life.I told 'em that they was two of you, an' that the biggest one hed red hair, an' the little one was all pock-marked.Then they said you prob'ly wasn't the man at all, an' my! how they did swear at them two tramps fer gettin' 'em way out here on a wild-goose chase; but they're goin' to look fer you jes' the same in Olathe, only they won't find you there," and she laughed, a bit nervously though.

It was dusk when Mr.Shorter returned from Holliday, but after he had heard his wife's story he said that he'd drive "them two byes" all the way to Mexico, if there wasn't any better plan.

"Dodson's far enough," Bridge assured him, and late that night the grateful farmer set them down at their destination.

An hour later they were speeding south on the Missouri Pacific.

Bridge lay back, luxuriously, on the red plush of the smoker seat.

"Some class to us, eh, bo?" asked Billy.

Bridge stretched.

The tide-hounds race far up the shore--the hunt is on! The breakers roar!

Her spars are tipped with gold, and o'er her deck the spray is flung, The buoys that frolic in the bay, they nod the way, they nod the way!

The hunt is up! I am the prey! The hunter's bow is strung!