“You can tell your men there we’re going to talk, and that they may as well bait their horses. We may be some time.”
He was getting to be quite an apt pupil. He turned and gave the order, and the two men stepped from their saddles and growled to him to make haste.
I led him round the tent to the shed where the three dead horses lay.
“Last night your man killed them. You see, there are three of them.”
“Well?”
“Well, there are three dead ones here, killed by your man, and there are three live ones out there on which you have just ridden up.”
“You don’t mean—what do you mean?” he asked. He was beginning to understand.
“How do you propose to make up that loss to me?”
He laughed uncomfortably. “You’re a cool hand,” he said.
“I’m cool enough just now,” I returned drily; “and none the safer on that account, perhaps, to fool with. How are you going to replace those three horses?”