"Go to the devil!" growled Bud angrily.
"I might, at that. I feel m'self slippin' that way," sighed Bob. "If it's a fair question, just what do you aim to do when we meet up with Butch? Ride up and say, 'H'lo, Butch, I'd thank yuh fer that money or whatever you swiped from Palmer,' and then fall back graceful outa yore saddle, or what? B'cause Butch is bound to shoot. Don't make no mistake about that."
"What I do," said Bud shortly, "will depend on circumstances. I'm not fool enough to draw a chart. If Butch has been over here, he got that money. If he got it, I'm going to get it away from him and turn it over to Delkin. Only a fool would plan the details at this stage of the game."
"Yeah, that's right," Bob admitted meekly.
For a time they rode in silence, Bud leaning over the saddle horn to study the loose soil of the canyon bottom. Bob, riding close behind him, studied each wrinkle and draw with eyes narrowed to keener vision in the soft half-lights of early evening when the shadows were sliding higher and higher on the western slopes and the peaks stood out all golden, clean cut against the tinted clouds.
"Three horses," Bud looked over his shoulder to announce. "All shod, but I've a hunch there's only one rider. Butch is so darned foxy I'm going to outguess him right here." He pulled up and swung round so that Bob, halting likewise, faced him. "Bob, you've done a good deal of riding over this way, so I'll let you take the lead from now on. Never mind the tracks. I believe Butch thought he'd try the loose-horse stunt, and brought a couple along with him. Farther on he'll turn them loose and haze them up different canyons—scatter the tracks. But I happen to know the shoe marks of that high-stepping brown he rides all the while. He's ahead of the other two, and back there where those rocks are lying helter-skelter Butch rode ahead and the other two followed him like led horses. Riders would have picked different trails among those rocks. You didn't follow my tracks, you remember. Each rider has his own notions of such things, and no man likes to trail right after another rider unless the path is so narrow he's got to. Ever notice that?"
"Ye-ah, now you speak of it. Gosh, you'll be a smart man, Bud, when yo're growed up."
"Well, right ahead here, I'll bet you a new hat the tracks will jumble a bit and then separate. And, Bob, I'm betting on another psychological twist. I bet you Butch will angle through these hills, and won't make straight for the Frying Pan. He'll be watching out behind—that's one reason why I'm holding back just here. We don't want to crowd him, come to think of it. What we want to do is hit straight for the Frying Pan by the shortest trail we know. Or the shortest you know. I lost a lot of trail lore in the years I had to spend in school."
"Yeah, I get you, Bud. I know a short cut through these hills, all right. But what if he don't show at the Fryin' Pan? Looks like a long gamble, t' me."
"He will. He's working there, and the Frying Pan is a bad bunch to break with. Butch is foxy. Also, he wants the big end, if I'm any judge. I'll bet you he hasn't said a word to Kid or any of the others about this deal. Didn't you see how Butch's eyes kind of glittered when I counted out that fifteen hundred to Kid? It was a pretty sight—gold twenties and tens stacked like poker chips on the table. Fifty twenty-dollar gold pieces—ten piles, five high, and fifty ten-dollar pieces, five piles ten high. It was enough to make any one's mouth water for gold money, wasn't it, Bob? I saw Butch's face when Kid raked the gold back into the bags. I saw how his tongue went licking across his lips—"