"You take Miss Ramona home. I'll tend to Gurley," said Roberts curtly to his friend. Into his eyes had come a cold rage Arthur had never before seen there.
At sight of them the bully's brutal insolence vanished. He tried to pass on his way, but the Ranger stopped him.
"Just a moment, Gurley. You're goin' with me," said Jack, ominously quiet.
White and shaken, 'Mona bit her lip to keep from weeping. She flashed one look of gratitude at her father's former line-rider, and with a little sob of relief took Ridley's offered arm.
"You got a warrant for me?" bluffed the outlaw.
At short range there is no weapon more deadly than the human eye. Jack Roberts looked at the bully and said: "Give me yore gun."
Steve Gurley shot his slant look at the Ranger, considered possibilities--and did as he was told.
"Now right about face and back-track uptown," ordered the officer.
At McGuffey's store Jack stopped his prisoner. A dozen punchers and cattlemen were hanging about. Among them was Jumbo Wilkins. He had a blacksnake whip in his hand and was teasing a pup with it. The Ranger handed over to Jumbo his guns and borrowed the whip.
Gurley backed off in a sudden alarm. "Don't you touch me! Don't you dass touch me! I'll cut yore heart out if you do."
The lash whistled through the air and wound itself cruelly round the legs of the bully. The man gave a yell of rage and pain. He lunged forward to close with Roberts, and met a driving left that caught him between the eyes and flung him back. Before he could recover the Ranger had him by the collar at arm's length and the torture of the whip was maddening him. He cursed, struggled, raved, threatened, begged for mercy. He tried to fling himself to the ground. He wept tears of agony. But there was no escape from the deadly blacksnake that was cutting his flesh to ribbons.
Roberts, sick at the thing he had been doing, flung the shrieking man aside and leaned up against the wall of the store.
Jumbo came across to him and offered his friend a drink.
"You'll feel better if you take a swallow of old forty-rod," he promised.
The younger man shook his head. "Much obliged, old-timer. I'm all right now. It was a kind of sickenin' job, but I had to do it or kill him."
"What was it all about?" asked Jumbo eagerly. The fat line-rider was a good deal of a gossip and loved to know the inside of every story.
Jack cast about for a reason. "He--he said I had red hair."