"Business first," cut in Buck Rutherford. "That's right, Dave," agreed the owner of the horse ranch. "How about that gunnysack? Where did you hide it?" Dingwell played for time. He had not the least intention of telling, but if he held the enemy in parley some of his friends might pass that way. "What gunnysack, Hal? Jee-rusalem, how my head aches!" He held his hands to his temples and groaned again. "Your head will mend--if we don't have to give it another crack," Buck told him grimly. "Get busy, Dave. We want that gold--_pronto_. Where did you put it?" "Where _did_ I put it? That willing lad of yours has plumb knocked the answer out of my noodle. Maybe you're thinking of some one else, Buck." Dingwell looked up at him with an innocent, bland smile. "Come through," ordered Buck with an oath. The cattleman treated them to another dismal groan. "Gee! I feel like the day after Christmas. Was it a cannon the kid hit me with?" Meldrum pushed his ugly phiz to the front. "Don't monkey away any time, boys. String him to one of these cottonwoods till he spits out what we want." "Was it while you was visiting up at Santa Fe you learnt that habit of seeing yore neighbors hanged, Dan?" drawled Dingwell in a voice of gentle irony. Furious at this cool reference to his penitentiary days, Meldrum kicked their captive in the ribs. Hal Rutherford, his eyes blazing, caught the former convict by the throat. "Do that again and I'll hang yore hide up to dry." He shook Meldrum as if he were a child, then flung the gasping man away. "I'll show you who's boss of this _rodeo_, by gum!" Meldrum had several notches on his gun. He was, too, a rough-and-tumble fighter with his hands. But Hal Rutherford was one man he knew better than to tackle. He fell back, growling threats in his throat. Meanwhile Dave was making discoveries. One was that the first two men who had attacked him were the gamblers he had driven from the Legal Tender earlier in the evening. The next was that Buck Rutherford was sending the professional tinhorns about their business. "Git!" ordered the big rancher. "And keep gitting till you've crossed the border. Don't look back any. Jest burn the wind. _Adios_." "They meant to gun you, Dave," guessed the owner of the horse ranch. "I reckon they daren't shoot with me loafing there across the road. You kinder disarranged their plans some more by dropping in at their back door. Looks like you'd 'a' rumpled up their hair a few if you hadn't been in such a hurry to make a get-away. Which brings us back to the previous question. The unanimous sense of the meeting is that you come through with some information, Dave. Where is that gunnysack?" Dave, still sitting on the ground, leaned his back against a tree and grinned amiably at his questioner. "Sounds like you-all been to school to a parrot. You must 'a' quituated after you learned one sentence." "We're waiting for an answer, Dave."