“There ain’t no hawse bawn can make me git off if I don’t want,” returned Ratty M’Gill, sharply. “I got canned.”
“Yep. And by that snip of a gal,” and he said it viciously.
“Ain’t you man enough to have a pony of your own?”
“Sam wouldn’t sell me one–the hound! Nor I didn’t have no money to spare for a mount, anyway. I’d rustle one out of the herd if the wranglers hadn’t drove ’em all up the other way las’ night. And I said I’d come over here to see you again.”
“What else?” demanded Pete, suspiciously. He seemed to know that Ratty had not come here to the ford for love of him.
“Wal, old man! I tried to go to headquarters. Went in to see the Cap. Nothing doing. If the gal had canned me, that was enough. So he said, and so Sam Harding said. I’m through at the Bar-T.”
“That’s a nice thing,” snarled Pete. “And just as I got up a scheme to use you there!”
“Mebbe you can use me now,” grunted Ratty.
“I–don’t–know.”