"Palmer, he run out on us, 'r we'd licked him too. This Mex, here, he's licked. Howled like a pup. Didn't you, Mex?" Tony turned gravely to the cringing captive, who nodded sullen surrender.
"Well, get your horses," Bud snapped. "You've got some riding to do now, you're so darn gay and festive. How long have they been gone? Do you know?"
They thought they knew exactly, but their answers were so conflicting that Bud and Delkin finally took the word of a boy who volunteered the information that Bat and Ed White had ridden out of town about ten minutes ago, headed toward home.
"We'll have to fan the breeze, boys, and we may wind up in the Badlands. Mr. Bradley, we'd better take a little grub—sardines and crackers, or something like that. Because if we don't overhaul them at the ranch, we'll just keep on going."
"I'll bring some stuff to the stable," said Bradley, and started on a trot to the store.
"Oh, hell, and we don't get drunk at all!" Big Bob Leverett complained disgustedly. "Wish I had the whisky I washed m' face in. A hull quart of Metropole gone t' granny!"
Bud whirled on the group and stared angrily from one to the other.
"You're drunk enough," he said contemptuously. "You fellows seem to think this is just a picnic. Do you want me to round up a posse here in Smoky Ford, and tell them that we've got the goods on the gang that killed Charlie and robbed the bank and that we're going after them, but our own men are too drunk to be of any use? I can take a town bunch, if you say so, and let you boys stay here and swill whisky. It would be a consistent finish to the damage you've done already—telling the gang that we're wise to them, rough-housing awhile like any other drunken chumps, and then letting them all get off except this greaser who may not know a thing about it." His lip curled in a sneer. "A hell of an outfit you are to round up outlaws!"
"Gwan an' git your Smoky Ford posse if you want to, Bud," Tony said stiffly, the whisky fumes swept clean from his brain by the hurt Bud had given. "While you're gittin' them, we'll hit the trail. Come awn, boys."
They took the remaining distance in a run, and they were saddled and ducking under the stable doorway and racing off up the road and out of town while Bud was still waiting for Bradley to come with supplies, and Delkin was telephoning the sheriff to come as quick as the Lord would let him. Smoky Ford itself saw only that the Meadowlark boys were in town raising Cain again, never dreaming that their one big tragedy of the summer was reaching a fortuitous climax, under the guise of a drunken fight in a saloon.