Ballard
With Gerald Smythe still shaking his head, Claire took off on horseback for the abandoned school house to deliver the ransom money. When she arrived there appeared to be no one around, but she wondered if she was being watched. She dismounted, took the sack of cash and entered the building. The lack of sound or movement was creepy. She quickly put the money in the back closet as she had been instructed, and left the building closing the door behind her. She galloped back to town as fast as she could.
Matt
Matt was riding hard after Billy and Doctor J. He was easily following their tracks. When he got close enough to hear their voices, he dismounted and crept closer. He had to be careful not to endanger Kitty.
Kitty was sitting on a rock, her hands still tied behind her. Doctor J and Billy were standing next to her arguing.
"Billy, we have go to after our brothers. They're probably on their way to Ballard. Maybe we can catch up and free them, or maybe we should ride straight to Ballard and plan on breaking them out of jail."
"For someone who got schoolin, you ain't too smart. First of all, what we got to do is get the money. By my figuring the money was put at the school house this morning. We go and get it, and then we worry about setting our brothers free."
"Billy, what about the woman? It's gonna be hard to drag her around with us."
"We'll drag her around for a while and then kill her when we figure we don't need her."
"Look, I don't take too kindly to the idea of killing a woman. Mama wouldn't like that."
"In case you haven't noticed, mama ain't here. Anyway, like Brad said, mama didn't think much of pushy women, and this one here is real pushy. Anyways, what else could we do with her?"
With the men's attention on their argument Matt stepped forward, "Hold it. Drop your guns, and put your hands up."
Kitty looked up and breathed a sigh of relief.
Doctor J drew his gun. Matt fired, hitting him in the right arm. He fell to the ground and his gun was thrown off to the side, as Billy was quickly pulling Kitty in front of him, "Drop the gun Marshal, or I swear she's dead." Matt threw his gun down. Billy easily tossed Kitty over his shoulder and ran into the woods.
Matt picked up Doctor J's gun, and his own and raced after Billy. The woods were damp, dark and dense making it hard to follow. Billy ducked behind a giant tree, pulling Kitty down with him. He pressed his gun to her head, "You make a noise and you are dead. Like we said, mama didn't care for pushy women."
Matt walked right passed the tree and continued searching. Having no luck he decided to backtrack. He got all the way back to the place where the brothers had been arguing and saw that the horses were gone. They had gotten away. He took off for the school house at a gallop.
Ballard
Claire arrived in Ballard after dropping the ransom off at the school house, and found a small crowd of people waiting for her. She dismounted and walked over to them, "I put the money where they said to. Now we wait. They said they'd release them within 12 hours."
Gerald Smythe was still skeptical, "I hope I'm wrong about this, dead wrong." He cringed at his poor choice of words.
The sound of wagons approaching drew everyone's attention.
Claire pointed at the wagons, "It's them. Thank heavens, it's them. The hostages have been released."
Mr. Smythe, being a serious man rarely smiled, but he was practically grinning, "I've never been so happy to be wrong."
Claire, Mr. Smythe and others rushed towards the wagons. As they got closer, it slowly dawned on everyone that one wagon had the hostages but the other had three men who were tied up, and that the sheriff was driving that wagon.
The 2 wagons pulled up in front of the Sheriff's office. John looked down from his driver's seat, "These are 3 members of the Johnson gang. Clear a path. I'm going to lock them up."
Nick climbed down from the driver's seat of the other wagon, and started helping the former hostages out of the wagon as Claire looked on.
Soon they were all out on the street surrounded by friends.
Claire ran over to Nick and they hugged. Claire looked around again, "Where are Kitty and Matt?"
Nick shook his head, "We got these three gang members, and another is dead but two got away and they took Kitty. Matt went after them."
"Oh Nick, It's my fault that Kitty is even there." Claire was wiping tears from her eyes when she suddenly realized that Nick and John didn't know that the ransom money had been delivered. "Nick, I dropped the money off at the school house. They must know that this morning was the deadline. Do you think they'd go there with Kitty?"
Nick took Claire by the hand, "Let's go tell all this to John."
They headed into the sheriff's office.