"Señor Kirby knows his business," the Mexican admitted. "Though I think also that this was no true wild one. He will make a good remount, but he is no fighter such as others I have seen here."
Drew unsaddled and left the black in with Croaker; he fed both animals a bait of oats. In the morning he would be at this again. And he still had not solved the problem of roping. He could not expect Teodoro to come to his aid a second time. He started slowly back to the bunkhouse.
"Señor—?"
Drew raised his wet head from the bunkhouse basin and reached out for a sacking towel. "Yes?"
León sat on a near-by bunk. "I have thought of something—"
"Sounds as if it might be important," Drew commented.
"Don Cazar, he has offered money—a hundred dollars in gold—to have off the Range that killer pinto stud. But that one, he is like the Apache; he is not to be caught."
"Can't someone pick him off with a rifle?"
"Perhaps. Only that has also been tried several times, señor. My father, he thought he had killed him only two months ago. But the very next week did not the pinto come to steal mares from the bay manada? It must have been that he was only creased. No, he is a diablo, and he hides in the rocks where he cannot easily be seen. But there is a plan I have thought of—" León hesitated, and Drew guessed he was about to make a suggestion which he believed might meet with disapproval.
"And this plan of yours?" Why had León come to him[pg 071] with it? Surely young Rivas had better and closer friends at the Stronghold. Why approach a newcomer?