Sam wiped a ragged sleeve across his perspiring face, turned and went into the house, his terror of the Meadowlark man erased from his simple soul by the note of human understanding and sympathy. He returned presently with a big tin cup full of cold buttermilk over which Gelle promptly bent his eager lips.
"Say, Snowball," he remarked, when he came up for air, "our cook at the Meddalark gits sixty dollars a month. And he gits it—and buys his own pants and shirts. You're bein' robbed and you don't know it. And say! Lark buys sugar, five sacks at a lick, and nobody gits the bad eye for dumpin' three or four spoonsful into his coffee. 'Tain't none of my business, Snowball, but I hate to see even a coon git the worst of it like that. Say, here's a dollar. Don't let ole Palmer ketch you with it though."
Sam's eyes would not stand out farther if he were being choked. He was too stunned by this munificence to put out his hand for the money, so Gelle tossed the dollar in his general direction, finished the buttermilk in one long drink, set the cup down on an upturned barrel near by and rode back to the gate to meet Bud, who was coming at a swift gallop. Bud pulled up, his eyes snapping with excitement.
"Go back around the corner of the fence, Jelly, and down the gully about fifty yards," he directed crisply. "I left that old man Blinker tied up, and I want you to stand guard over him until I can ride into town and back. He came up on me before I could get away in the brush, and all I could do was glom him and bring him out with me. I won't be gone more than a couple of hours, but it's too hot a day to leave an old man tied up with ants and mosquitoes and flies raising merry hell with him. Will you do it, Jelly?"
"Sure, I'll do it. Thank Gawd fer that buttermilk! Say, you ain't leavin' me out of anything like a scrap, are yuh, Bud? If you are, I'll pack m' prisoner in under my arm but what I'll go to yore party."
"No—don't think there'll be a word of trouble. I'll be right back, Jelly, and then we'll both ride in and make merry. We'll have a right." He was galloping down the road before Gelle could answer him.
Even in his haste Bud took thought of the curiosity he would probably excite if he came pounding down the hill with his horse in a lather, and once on the subject of precautions it struck him forcibly that perhaps Smoky Ford would be just as well off if it failed to see him at all. At the foot of the hill, therefore, he turned sharply off the road on a dim trail that meandered up a wash and rounded an elbow of the bluffside, and so came out at the rear of Delkin's livery stable, where four Meadowlark horses took their ease in the corral, the sweat scarcely dried on their backs. The sight of them reminded Bud that after all he had not been so far behind the boys who were probably still feeling the thrill of their first cold drinks. Indeed, they had not been gone on their odorous adventure more than ten minutes when Bud led his lathered sorrel into a shadowy stall and went burring his spur rowels down the long stable so lately echoing to the footsteps of those other Meadowlark riders. With considerable abruptness he pulled open the screen door and stepped into the office, his eyes flashing quick glances at the four men who sat there talking about the one big subject.
"Howdy. Glad to see you all here, because you're the men I came after, and I don't know just how quiet you want to keep this business. I've found your money—or the bank's money, rather. If you folks will ride out with me, I'll show you where it's cached. I went on a still hunt around Palmer's on my way in; saw he was headed for town, so I took advantage of his absence. His grandson, the one he abused so that Lark took him away, told me some things that gave a clew to the whole business. Palmer's gang came down river in a boat, hid under the bank and then took the loot back up river, and probably sunk the boat after they were through with it. That's the way I've doped it out, at least. At any rate, I can show you the stuff, and you can bring it in; but you'll have to hurry. Unless you can get there, and the stuff is moved before Palmer goes home, he may discover us. And he'll be leaving probably—"
"No!" The front legs of Bradley's chair came to the floor with a thump. "My heavens, but you Meadowlark boys work fast when you get started! There's those young devils over in the Elkhorn, pulling off a bit of play-acting to make Palmer's gang give themselves away. And here you come, busting in here with the news—"
"No time for argument," snapped Delkin. "You men come along and bear witness to this. If we recover the bank's property, you have a right to be there, anyway. I think those boys over there will keep Palmer and his men interested for another hour or two, which will give us time. Bud, are you alone, or did your uncle come with you?"