He looked them over. "Uh-huh," he said, "they're what I want."
"It is surprising that we have as many left as we have," she said. "We are about ready to give up, admit our failure, and go back East."
"Ma'am," said Johnny, with great earnestness, "don't you do it. Just sit tight an' see things come around yore way. Luck allus turns. Stick it out, an' see."
"Do you believe in luck?"
"I do; when somebody's behind it pushin' hard. Now, Ma'am, I reckon we hadn't ought to stay here no longer, where folks can see us. They might talk, an' there's no tellin' what harm it might do. Besides, this little Pepper hoss needs a bath an' I'm aimin' to take her into th' river as soon as she gets a little quieter—she looks like she mixed up with a tornado." He walked around collecting his guns, blowing sand from them, and cleaning them as well as he could. "There's shore some guns around here," he grinned, getting Lang's Colt and throwing it into the quicksand. "This here gun," he said, reloading Wolf's Colt and tying it under the slicker roll, "shore come in handy. Some folks would call that luck—mebby it was, as far as totin' it is concerned—but I'm tellin' you there wasn't no luck in th' way it was used. But as for totin' it, I reckon that was luck, even if I did carry it to fool somebody, sometime. Now, Ma'am, I'll be ridin' west. There's a regular bath tub near th' main trail, where th' river runs over solid rock: an' solid rock is th' only kind of river bottom I have any use for, today. Pepper an' I won't forget what you did for us—an' I'm tellin' you to sit tight, an' watch th' luck swing yore way. I'll be leavin' now—good-by, Ma'am."
She spurred her horse and shot even with him. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "You can't fool me about that—that man's rope fouling the wire. I know what he was doing. Why are you running such risks for total strangers?"
"Ma'am," he replied, smiling quizzically, "I don't know, unless it's because I can't keep out of trouble. I'm allus gettin' mixed up with it, somehow, an' th' habit's set, I reckon. I'm gettin' so I like it. But we shouldn't be ridin' like this. You have no idea how much folks can talk, or figger from a little thing like this."
"Can't you stop them, as you did that Bar H foreman?"
"Reckon so; but I ain't ready to," he grinned. "There's a time for everythin', an' I'm not shore th' time has come for that. When it does I'll know it without no doubts. I'm askin' how you learned all th' things you said yesterday?"
"I suppose it is a natural curiosity, even in a man; but I prefer to say nothing about the matter." She drew rein and he took off his sombrero. "I'm tempted to see if the luck will turn," she smiled. "Good-by."