For a moment Dinsmore did not move. Then he slouched forward. He noticed that the Ranger was not armed. Another surprise met him when he stepped into the outer room. The jailer lay on the floor bound.

The outlaw looked quickly at Roberts, a question in his eyes. Jack unlocked his handcuffs. They had been left on him because the jail was so flimsy.

"My rifle an' six-shooters are on the shelf there, Dinsmore. A horse packed with grub is waitin' outside for you. Make for the short-gra.s.s country an' cross the line about Deaf Smith County to the Staked Plains.

I reckon you'll find friends on the Pecos."

"Yes?" asked Dinsmore, halfway between insolence and incredulity.

"That's my advice. You don't need to take it if you don't want to."

"Oh, it listens good to me. I'll take it all right, Mr. Ranger. There are parties in Mexico that can use me right now at a big figure. The Lincoln County War is still goin' good." The bad-man challenged Roberts with bold eyes. "But what I'm wonderin' is how much Clint Wadley paid you to throw down Cap Ellison."

The anger burned in Jack's face. "d.a.m.n you, Dinsmore, I might 'a' known you'd think somethin' like that. I'll tell you this. I quit bein' a Ranger at six o'clock this evenin', an' I haven't seen or heard from Wadley since I quarreled with him about you."

"So you're turnin' me loose because you're so fond of me. Is that it?"

sneered the outlaw.

"I'll tell you just why I'm turnin' you loose, Dinsmore. It's because for twenty-four hours in yore rotten life you were a white man. When I was sleepin' on yore trail you turned to take Miss Wadley back to the A T O. When the 'Paches were burnin' the wind after you an' her, you turned to pick her up after she had fallen. When you might have lit out up the canon an' left her alone, you stayed to almost certain death. You were there all the time to a fare-you-well. From that one good day that may take you to heaven yet, I dragged you in here with a rope around yore neck. I had to do it, because I was a Ranger. But Wadley was right when he said it wasn't _human_. I'm a private citizen now, an' I'm makin' that wrong right."

"You'd ought to go to Congress. You got the gift," said Dinsmore with dry irony. Five minutes earlier he had been, as Roberts said, a man with a rope around his neck. Now he was free, the wide plains before him over which to roam. He was touched, felt even a sneaking grat.i.tude to this young fellow who was laying up trouble for himself on his account; and he was ashamed of his own emotion.

"I'll go to jail; that's where I'll go," answered Jack grimly. "But that's not the point."

"I'll say one thing, Roberts. I didn't kill Hank. One of the other boys did. It can't do him any harm to say so now," muttered Dinsmore awkwardly.

"I know. Overstreet shot him."

"That was just luck. It might have been me."

Jack looked straight and hard at him. "Will you answer me one question?

Who killed Rutherford Wadley?"

"Why should I?" demanded the bad-man, his eyes as hard and steady as those of the other man.

"Because an innocent man is under a cloud. You know Tony didn't kill him. He's just been married. Come clean, Dinsmore."

"As a favor to you, because of what you're doin' for me?"

"I'm not doin' this for you, but to satisfy myself. But if you want to put it that way--"

"Steve Gurley shot Ford because he couldn't be trusted. The kid talked about betrayin' us to Ellison. If Steve hadn't shot him I would have done it."

"But not in the back," said Jack.

"No need o' that. I could 'a' gunned him any time in a fair fight. We followed him, an' before I could stop him Gurley fired."

The line-rider turned to the jailer. "You heard what he said, Yorky."

"I ain't deef," replied the little saddler with sulky dignity. His shoulder was aching and he felt very much outraged.

"Ford Wadley was a bad egg if you want to know. He deserved just what he got," Dinsmore added.

"I don't care to hear about that. Yore horse is waitin', Dinsmore. Some one might come along an' ask inconvenient whyfors. Better be movin'

along."

Dinsmore buckled the belt round his waist and picked up the rifle.

"Happy days," he said, nodding toward Jack, then turned and slouched out of the door.

A moment, and there came the swift clatter of hoofs.

CHAPTER XLV

RAMONA DESERTS HER FATHER

Arthur Ridley, seated on the porch between Clint Wadley and Ramona, was annoying one and making himself popular with the other. For he was maintaining, very quietly but very steadily, that Jack Roberts had been wholly right in refusing to release Dinsmore.

"Just as soon as you lads get to be Rangers you go crazy with the heat,"

said the cattleman irritably. "Me, I don't go down on my ham bones for the letter of the law. Justice! That's what I aim for to do. I don't say you boys haven't got a right to sleep on Dinsmore's trail till you get him. That's yore duty. But out here in Texas we'd ought to do things high, wide, an' handsome. Roberts, by my way of it, should have shook Homer's hand. 'Fine! You saved 'Mona's life. Light a shuck into a chaparral _p.r.o.nto_. In twelve hours I'm goin' to hit the trail after you again.' That's what he had ought to have said."

"You're asking him to be generous at the expense of the State, Mr.

Wadley. Jack couldn't do that. Dinsmore's liberty wasn't a gift of his to give. He was hired by the State--sent out to bring in that particular man. He hadn't any choice but to do it," insisted Arthur.

Ramona sat in the shadow of the honeysuckle vines. She did not say anything and Ridley could not see her face well. He did not know how grateful she was for his championship of his friend. She knew he was right and her heart throbbed gladly because of it. She wanted to feel that she and her father were wrong and had done an injustice to the man she loved.

Captain Ellison came down the walk, his spurs jingling. In spite of his years the little officer carried himself jauntily, his wide hat tilted at a rakish angle. Just now he was worried.

As soon as he knew the subject of conversation, he plunged in, a hot partisan, eager for battle. Inside of two minutes he and Wadley were engaged in one of their periodical semi-quarrels.

"You're wrong, Clint," the Captain announced dogmatically. "You're wrong, like you 'most always are. You're that bullheaded you cayn't see it. But I'm surprised at you, 'Mona. If Jack had been a private citizen, you wouldn't needed to ask him to turn loose Dinsmore. But he wasn't.

That's the stuff my Rangers are made of. They play the hand out. The boy did just right."

"That's what you say, Jim. You drill these boys of yours till they ain't hardly human. I'm for law an' order. You know that. But I don't go out of my head about them the way you do. 'Mona an' I have got some sense.

We're reasonable human bein's." To demonstrate his possession of this last quality Clint brought his fist down on the arm of the chair so hard that it cracked.

From out of the darkness Ramona made her contribution in a voice not quite steady.

"We're wrong, Dad. We've been wrong all the time. I didn't see it just at first, and then I didn't want to admit it even to myself. But I'm glad now we are." She turned to Captain Ellison a little tremulously.

"Will you tell him, Uncle Jim, that I want to see him?"

"You're a little gentleman, 'Mona. I always said you were." The Captain reached out and pressed her hand. "I'll tell him when I see him. No tellin' when that'll be. Jack resigned to-day. He's got some fool notion in his head. I'm kinda worried about him."

The girl's heart fluttered. "Worried? What ... what do you think he's going to do?"

The Captain shook his head. "Cayn't tell you, because I don't know. But he's up to somethin'. He acted kinda hard an' bitter."