"What's that about the three o' yuh comin' along?" said Loudon.
"Why, Kate, she was with us. She changed her saddle to one of our fresh hosses. She wouldn't quit nohow till she heard yuh say yuh was all right. Then she started off home. Funny, she was ridin' a 88 pony when she struck the line-camp."
"That's odd, but it don't matter none. I'll--I'll see Kate later."
"Shore," said Hockling, wondering at the lack of warmth in Loudon's tone. But Western etiquette forbids the questioning of another's motives.
"Say," remarked Red, hastening to break the awkward silence, "say, won't Block feel happy when he finds we've done ventilated his deputies?"
"Yeah," replied Loudon, "an' the funny part of it is, they ain't got no right to arrest me. That warrant has been pulled in."
"Yuh shore forgot to mention that last night," Hockling said, disgustedly. "Here Red an' me have been pattin' ourselves on the back for runnin' a blazer on the law. An' now, come to find out, them deputies was in the wrong, an' so we only give 'em what was comin' to 'em, anyway."
"Well, you've got a nerve, you have!" exclaimed the indignant Loudon. "Do yuh think I'm goin' round dodgin' warrants so you two jiggers can run blazers on the sheriff?"
"Leggo my legs!" yelled Hockling. "I got on my new pants, an' I don't want the seat tore out! Hey, yuh idjit! Leggo!"
When order was restored and Hockling was tenderly feeling his precious trousers, Loudon suggested that Red, the lightest man, take Marvin's fresh pony and ride to the line-camp for food and two horses.
"Yuh'll have yore work cut out," said Red as he mounted, "to ride them ponies bareback. We ain't even got a extra bridle."
"Don't worry none," Loudon said. "We'll make bridles an' Injun surcingles out o' Marvin's rope, an' we'll toss for his saddle."
"How you feel, Tom?" inquired Laguerre, stretched at ease on a cot in the Cross-in-a-box ranch house.
"Whittled to the chin," replied Loudon. "Which that pony's ridgepole could give odds to a knife-blade on bein' sharp. We might 'a' knowed Marvin would win the toss. His own saddle, too."
"Eet ees de las' piece o' luck she weel have for varree long tam."
"I ain't so shore about that. There's no real evidence to show that Marvin's a rustler. 'Ceptin' Rudd, yuh can't connect any of the 88 outfit with the hoss stealin'. I know they done it. I always knowed Sam Blakely was at the bottom of it, an' I can't prove it yet. Here's you an' I rode from hell to breakfast an' back, an' all we've got to show for it is Archer an' the Maxson boys--an' the hosses, o' course. Unless I find out somethin' more soon an' sudden, I've got to take off Marvin's hobbles. My bluff about Bill Archer's blabbin' ain't workin' with Marvin. He's worried, an' he shows it, but he's standin' pat. I spent a solid hour with him to-night, an' all he does is cuss an' beef about what'll happen when Blakely finds out his range-boss has been kidnapped. It makes me sick!"