Military necessity, you understand." And
with that he lightly tore up the yellow sheets and tossed them
away.
"The conductor will wire when he reaches Apache," the operator
suggested, not very boldly.
The outlaw rolled a cigarette deftly and borrowed a match. "He
most surely will. But Apache is seventy miles from here. That
gives us an extra hour and a half, and with us right now time is
a heap more valuable than money. You may tell Bucky O'Connor when
you see him that that extra hour and a half cinches our escape,
and we weren't on the anxious seat any without it."
It may have been true, as the train robber had just said, that
time was more valuable to him then than money, but if so he must
have held the latter of singularly little value. For he sat him
down on the counter with his back against the wall and his legs
stretched full length in front of him and glanced over the Tucson
Star in leisurely fashion, while Pat's arms still projected
roofward.
The operator, beginning to get over his natural fright, could not
withhold a reluctant admiration of this man's aplomb. There was a
certain pantherish lightness about the outlaw's movements, a trim
grace of figure which yet suggested rippling muscles perfectly
under control, and a quiet wariness of eye more potent than words
at repressing insurgent impulses.
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