“Why ain’t you got horses?” he asked, looking toward me.

“They were both stolen from us.”

“I don’t s’pose you’ve seen anything of a company with a mare, short-tailed, that limped a little, and an overcoat that had a knife in the pocket?” asked Nat, eagerly.

“Not that I knows on,” answered Biddon, with a twinkle of humor.

I gave the particulars of our loss, and then asked, without due thought:

“Did you not camp upon the banks of the Republican Fork last night?”

“Yas; what’d yer want to know fur?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” quickly answered Nat.

I believe the trapper understood my allusion, and I hoped he would give an explanation of his act; but he made no reference to it, and, after further conversation, we all lay down in slumber.