"You'll have to ask them," Bud replied evenly. "They're in a hurry and upset, and didn't introduce themselves. Bat and Ed, the boys call them. Come on in, boys. They're out hunting a lost child, Maw. They think maybe Lark might have seen him last evening as he was riding out from town."
"Johnson's my name," the thin man introduced himself perfunctorily to maw. "This other man is named White. Is Mr. Larkin in?"
"Come right into the kitchen. Yes, Lark's here, going over his guns after the rain; leaky roof to the closet—Bud, you'd ought to patch that roof right away to-morrow. It was just an accident Lark went into the closet for something and found all the guns soaking wet. A child lost, did you say?"
"Don't seem to worry folks over this way very much," Johnson observed suspiciously. "How d' do, Lark; seen you in Smoky Ford, you remember."
"Hel-lo!" Lark, entrenched behind a table littered with guns, greasy rags, cleaning rods and odorous bottles, looked up and grinned a welcome. "Excuse me for not shakin' hands—coal-oil and bear's grease all over me. What was that, Maw, about a lost child?"
"They want to know if you saw anything of a boy back at Palmer's ranch. Old Palmer saw you ride past there about the time they missed the kid." Bud, pulling chairs to the supper table, spoke more rapidly than was his habit.
"I'll tell it," Johnson interrupted. "It's Palmer's grandson—Dick Palmer's boy. He was out in the field, and the horses come in without 'im. Palmer claims he seen you ride past, and he says you stopped an' talked to the boy. He wasn't seen after that, and the hull country's out lookin' through the hills for 'im. It seemed like you'd oughta know somethin' about 'im." Johnson's eyes clung tenaciously to the ivory-handled, silver-mounted six-shooter that lay close to Lark's hand on the table. The gun which Lark was working on at the moment was a shotgun, double-barreled and ominous.
"Yeah, I remember that kid." Lark spoke without haste, his eyes on the gunstock he was polishing. "Pore little devil, I rode along and found him hung up at the edge of the field, with the drag caught on a rock when he tried to turn around. He couldn't lift it off, and the team wouldn't pull it off, an' there he was, cryin' because he'd get a lickin' if he broke any teeth outa the harrer, an' if he didn't finish the draggin' along that end of the field, he'd get a lickin'—way he figured it, he was due for a whalin' any way the cat jumped." Lark inspected his work, broke open the gun and shoved in two pinkish cartridges.
"Too small a boy to be away out there, half a mile from the house, tryin' to do a man's work. I got off my horse and heaved the drag off the rock for him, and gave him a bag of gumdrops I was bringin' home to maw." He glanced at the old lady and smiled. "That's why you never got any candy this trip, Maw," he explained apologetically. "I gave the whole bag to the boy. It was worth it, too—way he began to put 'em away, two at a time. Mebbe he run off and hid from that lickin'," he added hopefully, picking up a rifle.
"The team come home," Johnson pointed out impatiently, "and the hull country for ten mile around has been combed. He never got off afoot." But he said it mildly and stared uneasily at the way Lark was handling the rifle; not pointing it at any one, but holding it so that any man there could look down its muzzle if he but turned his wrist a bit.