“I guess,” said Nick, from his saddle to Herbert on his right, “that you understand what all this means.”
“I suspect,” replied the elder, “that Strubell and Lattin are preparing for a fight with Rickard and his men.”
“I’ve no doubt that’s it, and they want us out of the way; they are pretty shrewd fellows, but I can’t help wondering what answer Strubell would have made, if I had asked him how our absence would be likely to help him and Lattin better than our presence. Well, no doubt they have good reason to want us beyond gunshot; we couldn’t give them any help, and might prove a hindrance, and they think too much of us to allow us to run into danger when they can prevent it.”
“Nick,” said Herbert, as if giving expression to a thought that had been in his mind for some time; “I wish I could think as you do about things, but I can’t.”
The younger lad looked at him with surprise.
“What’s the odds, if we don’t see everything in exactly the same light? But I am not sure that I understand you.”
“Let’s dismount for a few minutes.”
The open space where the four animals were standing was so walled in by masses and piles of stone and vegetation that, although considerably higher than their friends at the foot of the ridge, the latter were invisible. By climbing a large, irregular bowlder, the Texans were in plain sight.
“Don’t let them see us,” said Herbert, “but let’s watch them for a while: maybe you can explain things, and maybe you can’t.”
Nick was a little disturbed by the words of Herbert, though it should be stated that it was not the mind of either to suspect the Texans of anything but the truest friendship toward them; but it looked very much as if something was on foot which they wished to keep secret from their younger companions.