"All right!" said Kitchell. "We'll camp here ... in that shade." His gesture indicated some point beyond Drew's range of vision.
"They're gonna be sniffin' 'long right behind us," the sergeant said dubiously.
"You're forgettin' we've got us sonny boy here!" Shannon loomed over Drew. "He'll buy us out."
"Maybe from Rennie—not from them Yankee troopers."
"I told you"—Shannon lost his grin—"th' Yanks ain't gonna come all th' way down here! There's too much pointin' in th' other direction. That is, if you was as good as you said you was, Lutterfield!"
The old man grinned in turn, widely set yellow tooth stubs showing ragged. "Ain't never failed you yet, boy. Old Amos Lutterfield, he's got him those wot believe wot he says like it was Holy Writ—he sure has! Them troopers'll go poundin' down th' Sonora road huntin' wot never was, till they drop men an' hosses all along. Then Nahata an' his bucks'll tickle 'em up a bit—an' they'll forgit there was anyone else t' hunt."
Drew lay in the position where they had dumped him, his hands still tied, the ropes on his ankles now knotted together. Had the season been high summer they would have baked in this rock slit, but it was still uncomfortably warm. He heard a low moaning and saw Kitchell and Lutterfield[pg 215] bending over the Mexican. It was plain that the wounded man had suffered from his enforced ride.
Some time later the Kentuckian was pulled into a sitting position. His hands loosened, he was allowed to feed himself, but the carne tasted like wood splinters when he chewed it.
"Not much like th' Range?" Shannon asked him. "Don't worry none—it won't last long, Rennie, no, it won't!"
"You did take my papers."