It was after he had eaten and Marge was waiting in the living room, hoping Bud would come in and talk to her after the deadly monotony of the past two days, that Bud artfully drew Skookum off by himself and turned the conversation very casually to Butch Cassidy. He wanted to know what it was that Butch had been talking about; but Skookum, unfortunately, had promised not to tell.
"Well, that's all right, pardner. If you promised, don't go back on your word; unless," he added, "it was something mean. In that case, of course, I ought to know."
"It wasn't mean," said Skookum, after a pause for reflection. "If you asked questions like Butch did, I'd tell you more'n I told Butch. I—I didn't tell him any more than—than I had to. I—wouldn't hold out on you that way, Bud. You're my—my pal."
Bud could have hugged the boy. There was a chance, then, that Butch had not learned much more than they all had heard in the bunk house. He did not see just what use Butch could make of the information gleaned in this manner, but he knew what he himself wanted to do. So Bud began to ask questions, and Skookum answered them as carefully and as completely as possible.
When he went to bed that night, Bud kept smiling in the dark until he fell asleep, and even then his lips were curved as if his dreams were pleasant. Skookum smiled also and dreamed of the pinto pony Bud had given him for his very own; a pony that was too small for a full-grown man; a pony with white eyelashes, one blue eye, a doglike devotion to any one who would pet him, and the unusual name of Huckleberry.
The satisfaction of Bud and Skookum must have continued through the night, for both were up and out in the cool, dewy dawn when all the birds were ruffling feathers and puffing throats in rhapsodical melody.
Sooner than would seem humanly possible, Skookum went wading through dew-drenched meadows that straightway wet his feet, a frayed rope end dragging from the coil hung over his arm and in his two hands a battered basin holding oats enough to founder the pinto pony—or so Jake would have told him.
The pinto proved a willing partner to the new alliance, and let Skookum climb on his back and ride to the stable, obeying the guidance of a hand-slap on the neck, just as Bud had said he would. Picture any ranch-bred boy of eight or nine in full possession of a new and gentle pony, and you will have Skookum fully accounted for: riding reckless circles around and between Maw's flower beds to show her how Huckleberry neckreined; sending terror to the heart of a certain mother hen when he galloped full tilt and scattered her brood; roping gate posts, calves, old Jake, Lark—anything upon which a loop could settle. That was Skookum for the next few days.
As for young Bud, he was up and had a rope on one of the blacks before Skookum had so much as glimpsed the pinto pony. There was a certain shady corral with running water and a pole rack for hay, called the bronch corral, where he meant to leave them until his return, but already he was bent on making friends with them. He heard the boys making hectic preparations for the trip to town, and thought they must certainly be faring forth to carry out plans carefully laid in many conferences; whereas no man save Bud had any plan at all. They meant to ride to Smoky Ford and put a stop to the slander against the Meadowlark—how, they did not know.
"Funny Lark wouldn't do something about it," Jake Biddle grumbled, when the boys were saddling after breakfast. "Ain't like the old days—not a damn' bit. Old Bill would 'a' rode into town with a gun in each hand and a booie knife in his teeth, hollerin' his opinion of sech damn' liars. The fellers that started it—"