Smitty growled, took down the six-shooter, strode out to his horse and swung into the saddle. "Hope nobody picked it up," he said. "Twenty dollars is twenty dollars, an' I ain't got th' twenty. Anyway, it's a better gun than they're makin' nowadays."
"Don't lose that one while yo're pickin' up th' other," laughed the foreman.
When he was out of sight of the ranch Smitty wheeled sharply and rode eastward. "I got to get it," he muttered, "or I'll never hear th' last of it; but there ain't no reason for ridin' through th' canyon an' th' arroyo, along th' side of th' mountain for no four miles. It was too cussed close for a joke. An' mebby he aimed to spatter me all over th' trail. I just can't figger it, nohow. But I'm free to remark that any more of them jokes will send Smitty dustin' along th' trail, no matter what way he's pointin' at th' time, an' he won't never come back no more. Somehow, I just can't help thinkin' of pore Squint. Cuss it, I can feel it yet!"
Getting near the scene of his discomfiture, Smitty dismounted and went on a reconnaissance, viewing the benches from every angle, and after some time he located his gun lying in the grass near the trail. Returning to his horse he mounted and rode forward, striking into a dead run as he approached the rocky hump in the trail and, leaning down, he picked up the weapon as he swept past, no mean feat when the grass is considered. In a few minutes he pulled his mount to a lope and soon drew rein at the Doc's door, where he delivered the message, gossiped for a few minutes, and then went on to town.
The first person he saw was Two-Spot, leaning against the front of the Palace and who accepted, with alacrity, Smitty's invitation to drink. Two-Spot saw the condition of the hat before its wearer had dismounted, and his curiosity burned strongly within him. The puncher engaged him and Dave in conversation but his efforts at these sources of information were futile. What knowledge he gained had no bearing on Johnny. Two-Spot casually remarked that Johnny had been loafing around most of the afternoon, pestering him and said that he was a nuisance. Buying another round Smitty sauntered into Dailey's, where he learned nothing at all. Having taken the census and found that everyone had been rooted in town all day, he began to accept his foreman's view of the mystery, and set out for home, burning for an opportunity to observe his bosom friends and listen to their careless conversation. But if he had not received any information, he had not given any, and Two-Spot's curiosity about the hole in the hat was still raging.
"The' doin's on this here range are scandalous," observed Dave's factotum to Dave, himself. "They're gettin' worse an' worse, an' somebody's goin' to get hurt afore long. Now I wonder how th' devil Smitty's hat got abused like that?"
"What makes you think things is gettin' worse?" asked Dave.
"That Greaser tent never come by that hole from bein' used; an' Smitty was shore askin' a lot of questions; an' Nelson ain't swimmin' hisself an' that hoss for fun—I know I wouldn't."
"Which is an abidin' sorrer to all them as gets down wind of you," said Dave. "Was Nelson's saddle wet?"
"No-o; I reckon it was dry," grudgingly admitted the other.