Once, when Skookum had ventured into the pasture after a rabbit that had been caught in a trap and lamed, the black bull had come grumbling ominously from the bushes. Skookum had scrambled up the ledge out of reach of the bull and had waited so long in the shade of a jutting rock that he had gone to sleep. When he awoke the bull was gone, but his grandfather was coming in at the gate, which was almost as bad, so he had cowered down out of sight and waited for that threatening presence to pass. His grandfather had stood for two or three minutes looking back at the house, while he pretended to be fastening the gate behind him, and then he had walked on past where Skookum was hiding and had begun to climb the ledge.
"And—and I didn't tell Butch what—what I done after he—he climbed up on the ledge," Skookum had declared earnestly to Bud at this point. "I mean, I never told Butch about me sneakin' along after—after grandpa went back to—to the house, and lookin' to see what—what grandpa was doin'. So I—I found all his money—but I never took any. I—I was scared!" Skookum was very careful to let Bud know what he had not told Butch, since he had promised Butch that he would not tell a soul the things he had revealed during the quizzing. Skookum believed in the letter of the law.
"I couldn't see grandpa after he climbed up on the ledge, because the—the rocks was in the way," he had explained further, and because he had told Bud so much more, Skookum was now in beatific possession of Huckleberry, the pinto pony.
"He's a smart kid. I suppose with the wrong training it would develop into foxiness like his grandfather. He sure described it perfectly," Bud made mental comment when, from a safe covert of wild currant bushes, he surveyed the ledge. He could even recognize the place where Skookum had scrambled up to get away from the bull, and the rock jutting out and away from the main outcropping where he had curled up and gone to sleep. From that point Skookum had drawn what he called a map, and crude though it was, Bud felt sure that he could find the place of which the boy had told him in a scared half-whisper.
He did one foolish thing. In crossing the open strip of trampled grass just inside the gate he nearly stepped on a huge rattlesnake lying asleep in the hot sunshine. To pass so venomous a thing without killing it went contrary to all Bud's instincts and training. Rangemen reason that every rattlesnake left to crawl away may sink its poison fangs into the next unwary passer-by, and that death may be the result of some one's carelessness. Bud picked up a rock and sent it straight at the ugly head, following with other rocks to make absolutely sure of the job. When the snake was dispatched, he took long steps into the fringe of concealing bushes and climbed to the rock which Skookum had described so accurately.
At the house Frank Gelle was holding in his horse, that backed and circled restively, fighting the tight rein. Gelle himself was insisting loudly that Palmer had better come out or he'd go drag him out. No use hiding under the bed, he argued contemptuously. He wanted to talk to him a minute, and he would stay until he did talk to him, if he had to sit there 'til his horse starved to death.
"Boss ain't heah nohow!" Black Sam protested, rolling his eyes so that the whites showed all around. "You Meddalahk boys done plowed up ouah roof a'ready wif youah bullets, an' Boss he gwine on in to talk to Mist' Shu'f man. He jes plumb kain't come out, 'cause he ain't heah. No, suh, ain't pawssible fo' him to come out, nohow."
"I think yo're lyin' to me, Snowball," Gelle declared firmly, and shook his head. "You gotta prove it."
"Lawsy, Boss, how Ah goin' to prove nothin' like dat air, 'cep'n' you git off'm dat hawse an' look fo' youahse'f? B-but 'twon't do no good nohow, Mist' Meddalahk, awnes, it won't! Dat ole house ain't got nobody into it atall. Ain't nobody undah no baid, Boss, Ah swah to goodness dey ain't. Blinkah, he's somewhah on de place, but he don' count no moah 'n Ah counts, an' Ah don' count nothin' atall." Sam backed warily toward the kitchen door as Gelle pressed closer. "Blinkah, he ain't got no sense nohow, Mist' Meddalahk, an' A'm jes' an old black cook what doan' 'mount to nothin'. Boss, he's in town—leastwise he's awn de way—yessuh, yo'all kin ride awn aftuh him, Mist' Meddalahk, suh, an' tawk all you'm a mine to. Yessuh."
Sam was so scared, so plainly and honestly helpless, so anxious to placate the man he believed a dangerous foe, that Gelle hadn't the heart to bully him further. At the same time he must give Bud time in which to make a thorough search. He looked around for Blinker, but that peculiar fellow was nowhere to be seen.