Such an argument was more convincing than the note of pain in the voice of Andy, so that Irish shook off his uneasiness and laughed at the narrow escape he'd had from being made a fool. And speedily they forgot the incident.
It was Take-Notice who made them remember, when they had been an hour or so basking themselves, so to speak, in the smiles of Mary. They had fancied all along that she had a curiously expectant air, and that she went very often to the door to see what the lambs were up to—and always lifted her eyes to the prairie slope down which they had ridden and gazed as long as she dared. They were not dull; they understood quite well what "lamb" it was that held half the mind of her, and they were piqued because of their understanding, and not disposed to further the cause of the absent. Therefore, when Take-Notice asked casually what had become of Andy, Jack Bates moved his feet impatiently, shot a sidelong glance at the girl (who was at that moment standing where she could look out of the window) and laughed unpleasantly.
"Oh, Andy's been took again with an attack uh bluff," he answered lightly. "He gets that way, ever so often, you know. We left him laying in a sunny spot, a few miles back, trying to make somebody think he was hurt, so they'd pack him home and he'd have the laugh on them for all summer."
"Wasn't he hurt?" The girl turned suddenly and her voice told how much it meant to her. But Jack was not sympathetic.
"No, he wasn't hurt. He was just playing off. He got us once, that way, and he's never given up the notion that he could do it again. We may be easy, but—"
"I don't understand," the girl broke in sharply. "Do you mean that he would deliberately try to deceive you into believing he was hurt, when he wasn't?"
"Miss Johnson," Jack replied sorrowfully, "he would. He would lose valuable sleep for a month, studying up the smoothest way to deceive. I guess," he added artfully, and as if the subject was nearly exhausted, "yuh don't know Mr. Green very well."
"I remember hearing about that job he put up on yuh," Take-Notice remarked, not noticing that the girl's lips were opened for speech, "Yuh made a stretcher, didn't yuh, and—"
"No—he told it that way, but he's such a liar he couldn't tell the truth if he wanted to. We found him lying at the bottom of a steep bluff, and he appeared to be about dead. It looked as if he'd slipped and fallen down part way. So we packed water and sloshed in his face, and he kinda come to, and then we packed him up the bluff—and yuh know what the Bad-lands is like, Take-Notice. It was unmerciful hot, too, and we like to died getting him up. At the top we laid him down and worked over him till we got him to open his eyes, and he could talk a little and said maybe he could ride if we could get him on a horse. The—he made us lift him into the saddle—and considering the size of him, it was something of a contract—and then he made as if he couldn't stay on, even. But first we knew he digs in the spurs, yanks off his hat and lets a yell out of him you could hear a mile, and says: 'Much obliged, boys, it was too blamed hot to walk up that hill,' and off he goes."
Take-Notice stretched his legs out before him, pushed his hands deep down in his trousers' pockets, and laughed and laughed. "That was sure one on you," he chuckled. "Andy's a hard case, all right."