“He’s dest a-swingin’ his horns and goin’ ‘Mrrr! Mrrr!’” sputtered the excitable Jinnie, while Tod came in grandly.
“’F I’d had a rope, I’d ’a’ snaked him out o’ that mighty quick.”
“S’pose we sa’nter up there and have a look at him?” suggested Lefty Adams, throwing away his cigarette butt and reaching around for his saddle, of which he had been making a pillow. He cinched it on the pony deliberately. “Hi, fellers, what do you say? Shall we go and pull a steer out of the mud?”
“You boys mind what you’re doing,” said Colonel Marchbanks from where he lay under a big juniper, his hands clasped behind his head, a cigar between his teeth. “Those fellows are due to go on the prod when you drag ’em out of the mud. Don’t turn any cavorting steer down the creek here on us.”
Three or four young men had hastily saddled, mounted and wheeled to follow Adams.
“All right, Colonel,” Lefty called back over his shoulder. “Us girls’ll be powerful careful. We’re kind o’ scairt o’ cow-brutes ourselves.”
Then he caught his hat from his head, slapped it down in a loud “flop” on the pony’s neck, and clattered out of sight along the trail, leading the way with a long “Yip-pee!”
Among the group that rode at his heels were both
Pearse Masters and Fayte Marchbanks. Maybelle caught Hilda’s arm and without a word dragged her in their wake.
“Now,” she whispered urgently, “now’s your time to get a word alone with him—and help me. I want to slip across to that town crowd without Pa or Ma seeing me. Won’t take me but a minute. You wait for me here by the creek, and we’ll go back together afterward. They’ll think we’ve been together all the time.”