Chapter 18.

       Playing for Time

       Table of Contents

      “They've got 'em. Caught them on Dry Creek, just below Green Forks.”

      Helen Messiter, just finishing her breakfast at the hotel preparatory to leaving in her machine for the ranch, laid down her knife and fork and looked with dilated eyes at Denver, who had broken in with the news.

      “Are you sure?” The color had washed from her face and left her very white, but she fronted the situation quietly without hysterics or fuss of any kind.

      “Yes, ma'am. They're bringing them in now to jail. Watch out and y'u'll see them pass here in a few minutes. Seems that Bannister's wound opened up on him and he couldn't go any farther. Course Mac wouldn't leave him. Sheriff Burns and his posse dropped in on them and had them covered before Mac could chirp.”

      “You are sure this man—this desperado Bannister—will do nothing till night?”

      “Not the way I figure it. He'll have the jail watched all day. But he's got to work the town up to a lynching. I expect the bars will be free for all to-day. By night the worst part of this town will be ready for anything. The rest of the citizens are going to sit down and do nothing just because it is Bannister.”

      “But it isn't Bannister—not the Bannister they think it is.”

      He shook his head. “No use, ma'am. I've talked till my throat aches, but it don't do a mite of good. Nobody believes a word of what I say. Y'u see, we ain't got any proof.”

      “Proof! We have enough, God knows! didn't this villain—this outlaw that calls himself Jack Holloway—attack and try to murder him?”

      “That's what we believe, but the report out is that one of us punchers shot him up for crossing the dead-line.”

      “Didn't this fellow hold up the ranch and try to take Ned Bannister away with him?”

      “Yes, ma'am. But that doesn't look good to most people. They say he had his friends come to take him away so y'u wouldn't hold him and let us boys get him. This cousin business is a fairy tale the way they size it up. How come this cousin to let him go if he held up the ranch to put the sick man out of business? No, miss. This country has made up its mind that your friend is the original Ned Bannister. My opinion is that nothing on earth can save him.”

      “I don't want your opinion. I'm going to save him, I tell you; and you are going to help. Are his friends nothing but a bunch of quitters?” she cried, with sparkling eyes.

      “I didn't know I was such a great friend of his,” answered the cowboy sulkily.

      “You're a friend of Jim McWilliams, aren't you? Are you going to sneak away and let these curs hang him?”

      Denver flushed. “Y'u're dead right, Miss Helen. I guess I'll see it out with you. What's the orders?”

      “I want you to help me organize a defense. Get all Mac's friends stirred up to make a fight for him. Bring as many of them in to see me during the day as you can. If you see any of the rest of the Lazy D boys send them in to me for instructions. Report yourself every hour to me. And make sure that at least three of your friends that you can trust are hanging round the jail all day so as to be ready in case any attempt is made to storm it before dark.”

      “I'll see to it.” Denver hung on his heel a moment before leaving. “It's only square to tell y'u, Miss Helen, that this means war here tonight. These streets are going to run with blood if we try to save them.”

      “I'm taking that responsibility,” she told him curtly; but a moment later she added gently: “I have a plan, my friend, that may stop this outrage yet. But you must do your best for me.” She smiled sadly at him. “You're my foreman, to-day, you know.”

      “I'm going to do my level best, y'u may tie to that,” he told her earnestly.

      “I know you will.” And their fingers touched for an instant.

      Through a window the girl could see a crowd pouring down the street toward the hotel. She flew up the stairs and out upon the second-story piazza that looked down upon the road.

      From her point of vantage she easily picked them out—the two unarmed men riding with their hands tied behind their backs, encircled by a dozen riders armed to the teeth. Bannister's hat had apparently fallen off farther down the street, for the man beside him was dusting it. The wounded prisoner looked about him without fear, but it was plain he was near the limit of endurance. He was pale as a sheet, and his fair curls clung moistly to his damp forehead.

      McWilliams caught sight of her first, and she could see him turn and say a word to his comrade. Bannister looked up, caught sight of her, and smiled. That smile, so pale and wan, went to her heart like a knife. But the message of her eyes was hope. They told the prisoners silently to be of good cheer, that at least they were not deserted to their fate.

      “What is it about—the crowd?” Nora asked of her mistress as the latter was returning to the head of the stairs.

      In as few words as she could Helen told her, repressing sharply the tears the girl began to shed. “This is not the time to weep—not yet. We must save them. You can do your part. Mr. Bannister is wounded. Get a doctor over the telephone and see that he attends him at the prison. Don't leave the 'phone until you have got one to promise to go immediately.”

      “Yes, miss. Is there anything else?”

      “Ask the doctor to call you up from the prison and tell you how Mr. Bannister is. Make it plain to him that he is to give up his other practice, if necessary, and is to keep us informed through the day about his patient's condition. I will be responsible for his bill.”

      Helen herself hurried to the telegraph office at the depot. She wrote out a long dispatch and handed it to the operator. “Send this at once please.”

      He was one of those supercilious young idiots that make the most of such small power as ever drifts down to them. Taking the message, he tossed it on the table. “I'll send it when I get time.”

      “You'll send it now.”

      “What—what's that?”

      Her steady eyes caught and held his shifting ones. “I say you are going to send it now—this very minute.”

      “I guess not. The line's busy,” he bluffed.

      “If you don't begin sending that message this minute I'll make it my business to see that you lose your position,” she told him calmly.

      He snatched up the paper from the place where he had tossed it. “Oh, well, if it's so darned important,” he-conceded ungraciously.

      She stood quietly above him while he sent the telegram, even though he contrived to make every moment of her stay an unvoiced insult. Her wire was to the wife of the Governor of the State. They had been close friends at school, and the latter had been urging Helen to pay a visit to Cheyenne. The message she sent was as follows:

      Battle imminent between outlaws and cattlemen here. Bloodshed certain to-night. My foreman last night killed in self-defense a desperado. Bannister's gang, in league with town authorities, mean to lynch him and one of my other friends after dark this evening. Sheriff will do nothing. Can your husband send soldiers immediately? Wire answer.

      The operator looked up sullenly after his fingers had finished the last tap. “Well?”

      “Just one thing more,”