“Us three. That’s Jim Raley, with the busted arm. That other is Jud Smith, My name’s Larkin. We belong to the X bar O outfit on Lost Soldier Creek.”
“Second outfit below Forty-Mile,” said Huntington, familiarly.
“Right!”
“Sanders still foreman?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you doing with that horse up here?”
The cow-puncher grinned.
“I ketch your meanin’,” he replied. “It’s like this. Sanders chased Sunnysides three seasons, an’ thought he’d roped him. But all he gits ’s a cracked leg, an’ not a yeller hair of the slippery beast. Then us three takes on the job––not presumin’ to be better’n Sanders, but hopin’ for luck. It comes our way, an’ there you are. We offer him to Sanders––for a price, natch’rally––but he says he don’t believe in ghosts, an’ we c’n go to hell with him.”
“You must have missed the road. This is Paradise,” said Huntington.