"Made me lick m' chops too, Bud. And I ain't no thief," Bob put in fairly.
"Then think how you'd scheme if you were a thief!" Bud flashed back. "Put yourself in Butch's place. If you knew about where you could annex a fortune in gold and paper money—stolen goods that every one knew you couldn't have taken from the bank—and all you had to do was to ride over on the quiet and swipe it away from thieves—would you tell anybody else and have to divvy? You know damned well you wouldn't, Bob. Neither would I. I'd want it all.
"And by thunder! Bob, that's why he brought along extra horses! I'll bet you he thought he might need one to pack away the bank loot. He wouldn't know exactly how bulky it was, you see. Well, maybe it was partly that, and partly to make enough tracks to confuse Palmer's bunch. If he got the stuff to the Frying Pan, and needed help to hang on to it, he could cache most of the gold and then take Kid in on the deal and split the rest. At least, that's what I'd do."
"And is this what you'd do too? Set here chinnin' all night an' let him git the money all spent b'fore we take in after him?" Bob's voice had lost its humorous patience. "Me, I'm ready to swaller m' saddle strings like they was egg noodles! You wanta git over to the Fryin' Pan by the shortest rowt. Nothin' like hunger to drive a man, Bud, so I'm goin' to lead yuh back to them rocks and take awn up over the ridge. It'll be nasty ridin' after dark, so I advise you to pry yore eyes loose from them tracks and come awn, if yo're goin' with me."
He reined his horse around and rode back the way they had come without another word or glance, and Bud followed him. Plainly, Butch had chosen to keep to the canyons where he could duck out of sight or even lay an ambush if necessary. That way must be longer, and in spite of the rough going Bud counted on making time.
The stars were out in a velvet sky when the two loped unhurriedly up the long lane which was the only feasible approach to the Frying Pan, and pulled up at the high, barbed-wire fence that warded off intruding animals from the dooryard. Kid himself came walking stiltedly down the beaten path to the gate, and behind the green-curtained windows the boisterous talk and laughter stilled. In the shadow of the house, away from the seeping light from the windows, darker shadows indicated the blurred outlines of Frying Pan men who were making unobtrusive investigation of these unheralded horsemen.
"Why, hello, Bud," Kid cried distinctly, for the comfort of his men. A note of genuine surprise was in his voice which Bud wished had been pitched in a lower key. "That you, Bob? Turn your bronchs in the big corral and come on in. Had yore supper?"
That word brought a groan from Bob so lugubrious that Kid laughed.
"Hey, Bill! Come take the boys' horses to the corral, will yuh? Bob's groanin' fer pie—I know that tone, Bob." Then he added carelessly, "Butch didn't come back with you, eh?"
"We've been scurruping around—looking for a couple of those horses," Bud lied. "Butch will be along, maybe. Was he coming back to-night?"