Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/229

 admitted Elder genially. "Well, Dingwell, if you won't talk, you won't. We 'll move on up to the bank and deposit our find. Then the drinks will be on me."

The little procession moved uptown. A hundred yards behind it came young Rutherford and Charlton as a rear guard. When the contents of the sack had been put in a vault for safe-keeping, Elder invited the party into the Last Chance. Dave and Roy ordered buttermilk.

Dingwell gave his partner a nudge. "See who is here."

The young man nodded gloomily. He had recognized already the two men drinking at a table in the rear.

"Meldrum and Hart make a sweet pair to draw to when they 're tanking up. They 're about the two worst bad men in this part of the country. My advice is to take the other side of the street when you see them coming," Ryan contributed.

The rustlers glowered at Elder's party, but offered no comment other than some sneering laughter and ribald whispering. Yet Beaudry breathed freer when he was out in the open again lengthening the distance between him and them at every stride.