"
Moving as quietly as shadows, they entered the kitchen and easily
located the cellar door. It was closed and locked, with the key
remaining.
"Evidently they're not down there," whispered Chick.
"Let's try the upper floors," suggested Patsy. "They may be laying for
us up there, but I reckon we're good for them."
"We'll take the chance, surely. Come on."
They crept through the hall again, and then mounted the broad stairway,
which led to the next floor.
There the utter silence and the semidarkness quickly convinced them that
they were on the wrong track.
"The stable," muttered Chick, suddenly. "We'll try the stable."
"They certainly have vamosed this ranch," remarked Patsy.
"Plainly. Come on, then, and we'll try the stable."
Together they started downstairs.
A moment later Kilgore, Pylotte and Matt Stall came flurrying into the
house by the rear door.
In the bright light of the broad hall each party discovered the other
at precisely the same moment, and Kilgore instantly guessed the truth.
With a cry of rage, he whipped out his revolver and fired point-blank at
the two men on the stairs.
"Down 'em, boys!" he yelled furiously. "Down 'em, or our game is done
for!"
His bullet glanced from the baluster rail near Chick, and buried itself
in the wall behind him.
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