"I just got to kill that Dave. Rose has got to lemme off on that promise. I bet she will now he 's gone an' shot up Buck."
Mrs. Blake stirred in her chair and opened one eye. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings—"
"Sucker yoreself!" retorted Pickles. "Reckon you think I don't know nothin'. You wait." He slammed the door behind him and stamped off, greatly incensed. His advice to Jake, who told him to open the other door while he carried in a trunk, was impossible to follow, involving a journey from which no one, not even Jake, would ever be likely to return.
When Margaret, insisting that Mary direct operations from her chair, was satisfied with domestic arrangements, she asked Murray's advice about sending the medicine chest to Rose. Obeying Whitby's wishes seemed the most important thing in life at present. Cock demurred to her plan of sending him before morning; and he was opposed to leaving the ranch at all before Buck himself took charge again. Margaret was vexed at his stupidity. They had gone together to the bunk-house and argued the matter with the object of dispute on the floor between them. Glancing at them from his own especial bunk was Pickles, trying in vain to make sense from a jumble of sounds unlike any he had ever heard. Pickles' vocabulary was very limited. His snort of disgust as he gave it up and turned his back on the disputants, gave Cock an idea. "Pickles," he said, "Buck's sick and he needs this box. Buck told me to stay at the ranch. Will you take it if I saddle Swallow?"
"Shore will," and Pickles shoved one entirely nude leg from the bunk; before he could follow it with the other, he was much surprised and more embarrassed to find himself swooped upon, seized and swiftly kissed by Margaret, whose brown-clad form fled through the door like the flirt of a wood-thrush, vanishing into the dim recesses of the forest.
* * * * *
Ned Monroe and the boys, Big Saxe with them, came straggling up to the bunk-house in the early hours of the morning, Ned having acquired a change of mounts at Twin River. They secured their prisoner by the simple expedient of tying him in a lump—and a cow-punch makes knots that are exceedingly hard to struggle out of. Big Saxe did n't try.
Cock Murray was first out and he awoke Ned. In the open, safe from being overheard, they held conference, Monroe nodding his head understandingly as Cock made his points. After breakfast, Monroe delivered a speech, short and to the point, and when they separated to their duties, Cock and Slow Jack rode away together. Big Saxe, very effectually hobbled at the ankles, was put in charge of Chesty Sutton who tersely informed him that the first false move he made he would find himself humpbacked all the way to his feet.
Cock bent his powers of persuasion to the converting of Slow Jack. It proved an easy task. Secretly admiring Cock and his ways, Slow Jack also perceived the trend of events to be putting Schatz out of the running. The unbending will of Hopalong was over them all and Slow Jack was not averse to throwing his services to the winning side.
It was the middle of the afternoon when Whitby appeared. The women listened to his news with varying degrees of interest. Buck was doing well and had declared it would not be long before he was at the ranch; in the meantime, as he was obliged to be quiet, he seemed well contented where he was. Pickles had arrived safe and had constituted himself body-guard and messenger-at-need for Rose. As for Hopalong he could tell them no more than they had already learned from Monroe. Mary was not worried. She had supreme confidence in Hopalong's ability to take care of himself and would have smiled if any one had suggested danger.