"I know that. Got to turn him loose, o' course. Did yuh see anythin' o' Block or Blakely or that gang when yuh come through Farewell?"
"We didn't strike Farewell. We rode here the shortest way. Why--what's the matter?"
For Loudon had ripped out an amazed oath.
"Yore rope!" exclaimed Loudon. "Where did yuh get that rope?"
"Oh, Doubleday found it down by the little corral the mornin' after him an' the boys rode in from the Bend--after them hosses was stole."
"Why didn't yuh tell me about it then? That rope was all I needed. Say, Johnny, djever see this rope before?"
Loudon held up the end of the rope. The holdfast was missing, and the end had been lapped with many turns of whip-cord. Johnny squinted at the rope's end. Jack Richie and the others crowded in.
"Yeah," said Johnny Ramsay, "now I think of it, you an' me was in Mike Flynn's store in Farewell when Sam Blakely bought him that rope with the whip-cord on the end. That was the day you bought a green necktie. Shore, I remember. Blakely he asked Mike what that whip-cord was, an' Mike called it whippin'."
"That's what he did," declared Loudon. "I noticed this whippin' jigger special, an' I can swear to it on a stack o' Bibles a mile high. It's the same rope all right enough."
Scotty observed that he would be consigned to everlasting damnation. Ropes, he had supposed, were all alike.
"I knowed that rope must 'a' belonged to one o' the rustlers," said Scotty, "but it was such a little thing that I'd forgot all about it by the time you got back to the ranch, Tom. Blakely's rope! It's shore amazin'."
"It sort o' settles the cat-hop, don't it?" said Loudon.
"Kind o'," Scotty said, his frosty blue eyes gleaming. "We'll wander over to the 88 right away. I guess now we'll leave Marvin tied up yet awhile. We'll attend to him later. Can yuh give us fresh hosses, Jack?"
"Can I?" exclaimed Jack Richie. "Watch me. I guess me an' a few o' the boys will ride along with yuh. Just to see fair play like."
"Say, Scotty," Loudon said, while the fresh horses were being roped, "I hope Pete O'Leary didn't see you an' the bunch leavin' the Bend."
"He didn't," replied Scotty. "O'Leary ain't with us no more--No, not that way. He's alive yet so far as I know. But he pulled his freight some sudden 'bout two weeks ago. Dunno why."