Hicks, who had evidently been deceived into thinking that this last arrest had created no excitement.
“That's why we picked yer up so early,” he explained, genially. “Bart said if we got to yer afore the boys woke up they'd never hear nuthin' 'bout it, an' so thar wouldn't be no row. He didn't even think thar'd be enny need o' keepin' a special guard ter-night, but I reckon I won't take no such chance as that, an' I'll have a couple o' deputies prowlin' 'round fer luck. When Carson does wake up, she's hell.”
He left them tobacco and pipes, and went away evidently convinced that he had performed his full duty. The two prisoners, puffing smoke-rings into the air, heard the heavy clang of the iron bar falling into place across the door, and sat looking into one another's faces through the deepening twilight. In the mind of both blaik and white reposed the same thought. The negro was first to break the silence.
“'Pears ter me, Massa Jack, like dis yere Bart pusson am mighty anxious ter hab no suspicions raised.”
“Anybody but Hicks would see that,” acknowledged the other, the rings of smoke circling his head, “but he hasn't any brains. It was pure nerve that got him the job. Well, this is one time that 'Bart pusson' is going to find an empty coop. We'll get out, Neb, just as soon as it gets dark enough. Hicks isn't likely to put on his extra guard for an hour yet, and the 'Red Light' bunch won't be fit for business much before midnight. By that time we'll be in the sand hills, heading south, able to give them a run for their money—we'll have horses, too, if we can find them.”
The negro's eyes shone white.
“Fo' de Lawd's sake, Massa,” he protested, “dat'd sho' be a hangin' job if ebber dey cotched us.”
Keith laughed, knocking out the ashes from his pipe.
“With an hour's start that will be the least of my troubles,” he said, quietly.
Chapter VI. The Escape
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