The latter, as the significance of
the question came home to him, went even a sicklier white, like the
belly of a dead fish. His eyes moved swiftly about the circle of his
posse. Their answering glares were sternly forbidding.
"Out with it!" commanded Dan.
The sheriff strove mightily to speak, but only a ghastly whisper came:
"You got the wrong tip, Dan. I don't know nothin' about Silent. I'd
have him in jail if I did!"
"Bart!" said Dan.
The wolf slunk closer to the kneeling man. His hot breath fanned the
face of the sheriff and his lips grinned still farther back from the
keen, white teeth.
"Help!" yelled Morris. "He's at the shanty up on Bald-eagle Creek."
A rumble, half cursing and half an inarticulate snarl of brute rage,
rose from the cowpunchers.
"Bart," called Dan again, and leaped back from the door, raced out to
Satan, and drove into the night at a dead gallop.
Half the posse rushed after him. A dozen shots were pumped after the
disappearing shadowy figure. Two or three jumped into their saddles.
The others called them back.
"Don't be an ass, Monte," said one. "You got a good hoss, but you
ain't fool enough to think he c'n catch Satan?"
They trooped back to the dining-room, and gathered in a silent circle
around the sheriff, whose little fear-bright eyes went from face to
face.
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