"What time you ridin'
against?"
"Against a cross between a bullet and a nor'easter, Gary. I'm going
back to drink to your luck."
A promise which Buck Daniels fulfilled, for he had need of even borrowed
strength. He drank steadily until a rattle of hoofs down the street
entered the saloon, and then someone came in to say that Gary Peters had
started out of town to "beat all hell, on his red mare."
After that, Buck started out to find Dan Barry. His quarry was not in
the barn nor in the corral behind the barn. There stood Satan and Black
Bart, but their owner was not in sight. But a thought came to Buck while
he looked, rather mournfully, at the stallion's promise of limitless
speed. "If I can hold him up jest half a minute," murmured Buck to
himself, "jest half a minute till I get a start, I've got a rabbit's
chance of livin' out the night!"
From the door of the first shed he took a heavy chain with the key in
the padlock. This chain he looped about the post and the main timber of
the gate, snapped the padlock, and threw the key into the distance. Then
he stepped back and surveyed his work with satisfaction. It would be a
pretty job to file through that chain, or to knock down those ponderous
rails of the fence and make a gap. A smile of satisfaction came on the
face of Buck Daniels, then, hitching at his belt, and pulling his
sombrero lower over his eyes, he started once more to find Dan Barry.
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