She consented that her assembled body-guard should, if
they insisted, push on and mobilize at Viper, where if suspicious
circumstances warranted, they might be near enough to take emergency
action. If she came through safely to Perry Center, she would be
secure in the house of a kinsman and from there on would have little to
fear.
At ten o'clock the next morning Alexander came out of the bank,
followed by Bud Sellers, who carried his own saddle-bags over his arm,
as if he too contemplated a journey. Brent, in order to avoid the
appearance of too close a participation in her affairs, did not
accompany her--nor was Halloway anywhere in evidence.
As the girl went out to where her hired mule stood hitched, various
observers along the ragged street noted that her rifle was strapped
under the saddle skirt in such a way that it could not be speedily
loosened. They also watched as, with no pretense of concealment, she
stuffed into her saddle-hags a parcel done up in heavy brown paper, and
made conspicuous by the bank's red sealing wax. Then, still scornful
of evasion, she mounted and rode away as straight-shouldered and
militant a figure as Jeanne d'Arc herself.
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