“Sure not!” laughed Rowdy. “Only I'll want Pink and the Silent One to stay with me.”
“Keep what men yuh want. Anything else?”
“I don't think of anything,” said Rowdy. “Only I'd like to have a—talk—with Conroy.” Creek eyed him sharply. “Yuh won't be apt t' meet him. Old Bill Brown, up home, would like to see him, too. Bill's a perseverin' old cuss, and wants to see Conroy so bad he's got the sheriff out lookin' for him. It's about a bunch uh horses that was run off, three years ago. Yuh brought one of 'em back into the country last spring, yuh mind.”
Rowdy and Pink looked at one another, but said nothing.
“Old Bill, he follered your back trail and found out some things he wanted t' know. Conroy got wind of it, though, and he left the agency kind-a suddint. No use yuh lookin' for him.”
“Then we're ready to hit the grit, I guess.” Rowdy glanced again at Pink who nodded.
“Well, I ain't stoppin' yuh,” Eagle Creek drawled laconically. “S'-long, and good luck t' yuh.”
He waited while Pink and the Silent One swung the point back down the hill, with Rowdy helping them, quite unmoved by his sudden promotion. When the herd was fairly started on the backward march, Eagle Creek nodded satisfaction the while he pried off a corner of plug-tobacco.
“He's all right,” he asserted emphatically. “That boy suits me, from the ground up. If he don't put that deal through in good shape, it'll be becaus' it can't be did.”
Wooden Shoes, with whom Rowdy had always been a prime favorite, agreed with Dutch heartiness. Then, leaving the herd to its new guardian they rode swiftly to overtake and turn back the wagons.