Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/151

 This young man was defendant in an action to recover on a debt, brought by one of the county's most prominent citizens. It was the general public belief that this young man from Texas, resentful of this lawful reckoning demanded of him, had summoned his outlawed comrades from his notoriously vicious country, and carried out the robbery as a vindictive stroke of retaliation.

It was certain that the outlaw who had fallen by the city marshal's hand was a Texan. Letters and other evidence in his possession established that. It was also established beyond question that the young cowman before alluded to was the man who took the money from the bank's safe and threw it into a grain sack, which grain sack he carried out and flung across the saddle of one of the waiting horses, and rode away with it before him toward the fastness of No Man's Land.

All this, and much more, Louise Gardner read after she had borne her part in serving supper as usual, sitting in her little corner room with one window opening to the west, another to the south. Out of this south window she looked as night fell over the prairie, the confusion of this tragic event upon her. A soft little wind was coming up from No Man's Land, a lonesome, home-yearning touch in it, like a plea from Tom Laylander for an abeyance of judgment.

No Man's Land was not more than sixty miles away, in a southwesterly direction, lying west of the Cherokee Strip. Range horses could cover that distance in a few hours, Louise knew. She felt a little lifting of gladness