Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/348

 stop in town," replied Joe. "We don't want to do that, so we shall keep going and get as close to a level country as we can before the dark overtakes us. Good-by."

This was a moment that all the boys had been looking forward to with many misgivings. Would Daily and his men permit them to leave when they got ready? was a question that had often shaped itself in their minds, and which would now be answered in a very few seconds. To their immense relief the men who had been ready to shoot them half an hour before, showed no disposition to molest them or their property. They might be thieves and law-breakers, but they were not highwaymen. They said "So-long" very cordially, and saw the boys mount and ride away.

"Now here's a mess, or will be if we don't make the best time we know how before night comes," said Arthur, when the first turn in the road took them out of sight of Dave Daily and his friends. "I don't know when I have been more astounded than I was when that outlaw pronounced Matt Coyle's name."

"Didn't that juryman say that he believed