"Hello!" he said, in a gruff tone; "what are you doing over here?"
"Come to see you, Hank." The man, who was under thirty and tall and strong of limb, thrust out his hand and shook that of his friend. "I left my horse down at the square."
"What do you want to see me about, Ray?" Bradley's voice almost shook with growing perturbation. "You told me last week that you never would come this way again--that the more we all was scattered the safer it would be."
"I'm on my way to the nighest railroad, Hank."
"You say you are?" Bradley leaned against the fence, and his face turned white. "You don't think it's as--as bad as that?"
"Don't I? Huh, I only hope I'll catch that twelve-o'clock flyer! I wouldn't be here now but I told you I'd never act without reporting to you, and that's what I'm doing, Hank."
"But what's--what's happened to--to scare you up so?" Bradley stammered.
"Hank, that fellow's kin are on our track like a pack of thirsty bloodhounds. I got onto it by accident. They have smelt blood, and they are going to drink some. We got the wrong man; I know it damned well now, and you and me was the ringleaders. You know the West, Hank. I want you to show me the way. Git a move on you. You haven't a minute to lose."
"I'll have to raise some money." Bradley looked toward the dim form of old Welborne through the darkness. "Go back to town, Ray. I'll see my uncle and pack and meet you at the train. I'm sure you are right. I've seen bad signs myself. I'd have lit out before this, but there was a skunk here that I wanted to settle a score with."
"I know, but you'll have to cut that out, Hank. This is no time for revenge. Hurry up. I'm off. I've got to get a man to take my horse home."
When his accomplice had gone away, Bradley crossed over to old Welborne.
"You remember," he began, "that you advised me to leave here the other day?"
Old Welborne stared at him steadily for a minute, and then shrugged his decrepit shoulders. "I have been expecting to hear you say you'd settled with the jackass that gave you that licking that day. I don't want to see you get into more trouble, but that fellow ought to be pulled down from his lordly perch. I never see him without feeling his hands on my throat. He's the one man that has always stood in my way. And now, just look at him! He's in big luck again, and can sneer in his high and mighty way at all of us. That fool woman he was so crazy about as to marry when she loved another man has come into a great big fortune, and he walks about with a strut as it he was a king and we all was common trash 'way beneath his notice. I saw him talking to Dixie Hart this morning in the post-office. His face was shining, and his eyes twinkling over the news of his wife's big haul. Me an' him have had it nip and tuck here ever since he set up in business, and he has always thwarted me. I've pinched and delved to save a few dollars, and his comes to him in rolls and wads. Folks say he's going to sell out and live over there in ease the rest of his life. I don't care how soon he leaves, but I'd like to wipe that grin off his gloating face."