"That man Palmer, who deposited five thousand dollars just before he came into the saloon, looked at you very queerly when you were giving an account of finding the cashier," Brunelle observed irrelevantly, thinking it best to change the subject before Marge said something sarcastic.
"He can't help that. He was born queer," Bud retorted. "Meanest old skinflint in the country. Took a quirting from my uncle before the whole town, and never has made a move to get back at Lark for it. Maybe that's why he looks queer when he sees some one from the Meadowlark."
"But he sneered as if he thought you were lying," Lawrie persisted.
"Well, so did I sneer as if I thought he were lying when he told about depositing five thousand dollars in the bank. I bet he keeps his money buried back of the barn or some other good place."
"I wish we'd buried ours," Marge sighed. "Or the editors would wake up and buy a story or something. We'll have to hunt some work to do, Lawrie—"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Marge. Mr. Larkin knows of a school you can teach. He says the Meadowlark school needs a teacher. And perhaps I can get a job somewhere close, as a cowboy. Do you think I could, Mr. Larkin?"
"How do we get there?" Marge began to untie her apron as if she meant to start within the next five minutes. Bud caught his breath and opened his mouth to explain, to temporize. But Marge was already beginning to pack her books, and her eyes were the brightest, dancingest gray eyes he had ever looked into. His own kindled while he gazed.
So that is how it happened that young Bud Larkin, leaving his own tall sorrel in Delkin's stable as hostage of a sort, drove blithely out to the Meadowlark with a hired team and a spring wagon and two passengers squeezed into the front seat with him and three trunks piled high and tied there with Bud's good grass rope.