"The town is out," the short man told him, grunting a little as he heaved his saddle to a dry spot under the shed. "Been out all night. Old man sent us over here because he seen Lark ride past right where the kid was workin' in the field. Looked like he stopped an' talked to the kid, he said, but it was so fur off he couldn't tell."
Bud turned and walked ahead of them up the path, and now he glanced over his shoulder at the speaker, a curious light in his eyes.
"A kid old enough to work in the field wouldn't get lost, would he?"
The thin man shook his head.
"That's what looked damn queer to me," he assented. "But it's about the only thing that could of happened—unless he was made away with," he added as an afterthought.
"How old a kid is he?" Bud's interest grew a bit keener.
"Eight—mebby nine. Too little to get anywhere on foot."
Bud considered this, shook his head as if the question was beyond him, and stepped upon the porch. "Oh, Maw! Supper ready? Two extra," he shouted, and turned squarely about to scrape his bootsoles across the edge of the porch.
"I'd run away," he said soberly, "if I wasn't more than eight or nine and had to do a man's work. Doesn't sound right to me." Having scraped all the mud from one boot, he began meticulously to scrape the other. The two from Palmer's followed his example and scraped and scraped, in evident fear of offending a careful housewife.
"Come right in, boys." Maw herself pulled open the door and stood there, smiling and showing the three yellow teeth like stripes dividing the glaring white ones. "Supper's about ready. What's these gentlemen's names, Buddy?"