"Oh, don't preach," MacRae protested. "I know all that as well as you do. Great Scott! Burky, you've known me ever since I joined; do you imagine for a minute that I was in on that hold-up? Why, you know better. If I'd done anything so damned rotten, I'd have been out of the country long before this."
"Orders is orders," Burky sententiously observed. "Headquarters sez you're t' be took in, an' you'll be took in, no matter what a feller's private opinion happens t' be. I ain't no bloomin' judge an' jury t' set on your case, anyway. You'll get a square trial—same as everybody gets. But you ain't a-helpin' yourself a-cuttin' of didoes like this."
"I haven't time to go into details," Mac told him, "and I don't suppose you'd believe me if I did. But I've a blamed good reason for not wanting to put in several months cooling my heels under guard while the men that got the stuff get clear out of the country. We're going to take two of these horses, because we'll need them in our business; and we'll leave your guns at that big rock down the ridge. I don't want to hurt you, Burky, but if you start making signals to the rest of the bunch before we get out of sight, you'll go back to Walsh feet first. So be good. You'll see us again before long."
When we were ready to mount, MacRae fired another question at Burky. "Say, have you seen anything of Frank Hicks or Paul Gregory to-day?"
"They was both in camp at noon," the trooper replied.
"Huh! They were, eh?" MacRae swung up, and spoke from the saddle. "Well, if you see them again, tell them we'll sure give them a hard run for the money. And if you've got your month's pay on you, Burky, you'd better keep your hand on it while those two pilgrims are about."
We took the third horse along as a precautionary measure. At a boulder down the ridge we left him, together with their belts, as Mac had promised. The only bit of their property we kept besides the horses was a pair of field-glasses—something that we knew would be priceless to men who were practically outlawed. For the next two hours we slunk like coyotes in coulée-bottoms and deep washouts, until we saw the commissary wagon cross the ridge west of Lost River, saw from a safe distance the brown specks that were riders, casting in wide circles for sight of us or our trail.
Then MacRae leaned over his saddle-horn and made a wry face at them.
"Hunt, confound you," he said, almost cheerfully. "We'll give you some hunting to do before you're through with us."