“What's up? What did yuh see?” Pink and Weary spoke in a duet, urging their horses a little closer.
“You fellers keep back thar 'n' don't act excited!” Applehead eyed them sternly over his shoulder. “I calc'late we're just about t' walk into a trap.” He bent—on the side away from the ridge—low over his horse's shoulder and spoke while he appeared to be scanning the ground. “I seen gun-shine up among them rocks, er I'm a goat. 'N' if it's Navvies, you kin bet they got guns as good as ours, and kin shoot mighty nigh as straight as the best of us—except Lite, uh course, that's a expert.” He pointed aimlessly at the ground and edged toward the draw.
“Ef they think we're jest follerin' a stray track, they'll likely hold off till we git back in the trail 'n' start comin' on agin,” he explained craftily, still pointing at the ground ahead of him and still urging his horse to the draw. “Ef they suspicion 't we're shyin' off from the ridge, they'll draw a fine bead 'n' cut loose. I knowed it,” he added with a lugubrious complacency. “I told ye all day that I could smell trouble a-comin'; I knowed dang well 't we'd stir up a mess uh fightin' over here. I never come onto this dang res'vation yit, that I didn't have t' kill off a mess uh Navvies before I got offen it agin.
“Now,” he said when they reached the edge of the sandy depression that had been gouged deeper by freshets and offered some shelter in case of attack, “you boys jest fool around here on the aidge 'n' foller me down here like you was jest curiouslike over what I'm locatin'. That'll keep them babies up there guessin' till we're all outa sight MEBBY!” He pulled down the corners of his mouth till his mustache-ends dropped a full inch, and lifted himself off his horse with a bored deliberation that was masterly in its convincingness. He stood looking at the ground for a moment and then began to descend leisurely into the draw, leading his horse behind him.
“You go next, Pink,” Weary said shortly, and with his horse began edging him closer to the bank until Pink, unless he made some unwise demonstration of unwillingness, was almost forced to ride down the steep little slope.
“Don't look towards the ridge, boys,” Applehead warned from below. “Weary, you come on down here next. Lite kin might' nigh shoot the dang triggers offen their guns 'fore they kin pull, if they go t' work 'n' start anything.”
So Weary, leaving Lite up there grinning sheepishly over the compliment, rode down because he was told to do so by the man in command. “You seem to forget that Lite's got a wife on his hands,” he reproved as he went.
“Lite's a-comin' right now,” Applehead retorted, peering at the ridge a couple of hundred yards distant. “Git back down the draw 's fur's yuh kin b'fore yuh take out into the open agin. I'll wait a minute 'n' see—”
“Ping-NG-NG!” a bullet, striking a rock on the edge of the draw fifty feet short of the mark, glanced and went humming over the hot waste.
“Well, now, that shows they got a lookout up high, 't seen me watchin' that way. But it's hard t' git the range shootin' down, like that,” Applehead remarked, pulling his horse behind a higher part of the bank.