“We've left more at the Sinks than the gnashing of teeth,” he said whimsically. “A couple of bad names, for instance. You're two bully good friends of mine, and—damn it, Marian will want to see both of you fellows, if she's there. If she isn't—we'll maybe have a big circle to ride, finding her. I'll need you, no matter what's ahead.” He looked from one to the other, gave a snort and added impatiently, “Aw, fork your horses and don't stand there looking like a couple of damn fools!”
Whereupon Jerry shook his head dissentingly, grinned and gave Eddie so emphatic an impulse toward his horse that the kid went sprawling.
“Guess We're up against it, all right—but I do wish yo 'd lose that badge!” Jerry surrendered, and flipped the bridle reins over the neck of his horse. “Horn toad is right, the way you're scabbling around amongst them rocks,” he called light-heartedly to the kid. “Ever see a purtier sunrise? I never!”
I don't know what they thought of the sunset. Gorgeous it was, with many soft colors blended into unnamable tints and translucencies, and the songs of birds in the thickets as they passed. Smoky, Sunfish and Stopper walked briskly, ears perked forward, heads up, eyes eager to catch the familiar landmarks that meant home. Bud's head was up, also, his eyes went here and there, resting with a careless affection on those same landmarks which spelled home. He would have let Smoky's reins have a bit more slack and would have led his little convoy to the corrals at a gallop, had not hope begun to tremble and shrink from meeting certainty face to face. Had you asked him then, I think Bud would have owned himself a coward. Until he had speech with home-folk he would merely be hoping that Marian was there; but until he had speech with them he need not hear that they knew nothing of her. Bud—like, however, he tried to cover his trepidation with a joke.
“We'll sneak up on 'em,” he said to Ed and Jerry when the roofs of house and stables came into view.
“Here's where I grew up, boys. And in a minute or two more you'll see the greatest little mother on earth—and the finest dad,” he added, swallowing the last of his Scotch stubbornness.
“And Sis, I hope,” Eddie said wistfully. “I sure hope she's here.”
Neither Jerry nor Bud answered him at all. Smoky threw up his head suddenly and gave a shrill whinny, and a horse at the corrals answered sonorously.
“Say! That sounds to me like Boise!” Eddie exclaimed, standing up in his stirrups to look.
Bud turned pale, then flushed hotly. “Don't holler!” he muttered, and held Smoky back a little. For just one reason a young man's heart pounds as Bud's heart pounded then. Jerry looked at him, took a deep breath and bit his lip thoughtfully. It may be that Jerry's heartbeats were not quite normal just then, but no one would ever know.