The whole scheme had been cut to that pattern and it was now
too late to evolve a new strategy. The trial was to have seemed
genuine. It was to have been followed by a fictitious battle in which
the alleged regulators were to have been put to flight by the
victorious entry of Jase himself with his underlings. The girl,
snatched from the jaws of death by his valor would henceforth rest
under such obligations as could be recompensed only by her favor--but
in the melee, her money would disappear.
Jase had not come--and the captive whom he was to take off their hands
must either be done to death or liberated with a wagging tongue.
Eventually the masked head-highwayman led two of his men aside. He
recognized that having compacted with Jase they could not ignore him.
In a whisper he ventured the suggestion, "Mebby Jase hes done come ter
grief. Mebby we'd better kill ther gal atter all an' git away. But if
we does we've got ter git Jase afore he has time ter blab an' hang us
all."
Halloway spending a long and dreary day bound to his chair in the
baggage-room at Viper had succeeded in wriggling his lips free of the
bandage.
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