"Yes? Well, you'll have to go some unless you play safe and do it now."
"I'll be willin' t' go when the time comes," Butch retorted. "Move awn—my mouth's waterin' fer chicken."
They moved on, Bud in the lead. Lark's rifle, he saw, was gone from the saddle. A foolish thing he had done, and a costly, to go swimming in that pool as carelessly as if he were down in the Basin pasture. He could find no excuse for it in his belief that he had the hills to himself that day. After so long a time he and Bob had both come to the conclusion that Kid Kern was watching Butch so closely that there would be no attempt made at present to retrieve the loot, and that they were therefore perfectly safe to search where they would.
At Butch's command, Bud dismounted some distance from the spring where they had made a makeshift camp. They approached the place on foot and so came upon Bob when he was least looking for callers, the supposition being that Bud would search until close to sundown before coming to camp. It was Butch's casual tones that brought Bob facing them in blank astonishment.
"I got a gun ag'inst Bud's backbone," Butch announced in a cheerful, conversational manner. "He'll git it, right plumb through the liver, first crooked move you make. Toss yore gun into the spring. It won't hurt the water none."
"Get him if you can, Bob," Bud countermanded. "Let the damned skunk shoot if he wants to; he will, anyway."
Bob looked at Bud, glanced over his shoulder into Butch's narrowed eyes, drew his gun and threw it into the spring with a muttered oath. Butch grinned.
"Got a knife? Throw that in too. All right, boys, let's go awn and have that chicken dinner. I an' Bud's been talkin' about it all the way over."
"'Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred thereby,'" Bud quoted under his breath with a grim humor not lost upon Butch, who overheard him.
"Nh-nh. This is goin' to be stalled chicken an' hatred thereby," he drawled. "An' I bet a dollar I'll hate harder 'n the both of yuh put t'gether. Wanta bet?"