Lanning. As a matter of fact—get in on this—Mike
thought you was Lanning himself." He began to laugh
heartily.
"Can't you picture Lanning hangin' around the same hotel where Hal Dozier is?"
"Well, let's drink," smiled Andy. While the others were poising their glasses he took a stub of a pencil out of his vest pocket and scribbled idly on the top of the bar. They drank, and Andy wandered slowly toward the door, waving his hand to the others. But the short man was busy trying to decipher the scribbled writing on the bar.
"It's words, Mike," he informed his companion. "But I can't get the light right for reading it."
At the same time there was a hubbub and an uproar from the upper part of the hotel. A dozen men were shouting from the lobby. And the men in the barroom started crowding toward the door.
"Wait," cried the short man. "Mike, listen to what he wrote: 'Dear Mike, in a pinch always believe what your eyes tell you. Lanning,'
"Mike, it was him!"
But Mike, with a roar, was already rushing for the street. Others were before him; a fighting mass jammed its way into the open, and there, in the middle of the square, sat Hal Dozier on his gray stallion. He was giving orders in a voice that rang above the crowd, and made voices hush in whispers as they heard him. Under his direction the crowd split into groups of four and five and six and rode at full speed in three directions out of the town. In the meantime there were two trusted friends of Hal Dozier busy at telephones in the hotel. They were calling little towns among the mountains.
