“’Deed we will,” agreed Hi. “The only trouble is, I ought to be at the mill in the morning. They’ll be looking for me.”
Hi spoke as if the mill would shut down if he didn’t get there on time, and Mr. Carson couldn’t conceal a smile. He liked Hi’s important businesslike ways and his fashion of taking responsibility. So he answered gravely:
“Allow me to call up the manager of the mill the first thing in the morning, Hi, and apprise him of the situation. I may be able to get him at breakfast, so that he’ll know just what to expect before he reaches the office.”
It seemed a reasonable arrangement to Hi, and he hadn’t the faintest notion of the smiles of his elders. So, mounted on the bare backs of the McBirney horses, the boys set out to ride up the mountain in the rain. Each wore an old raincoat which Mr. Carson had fished up from somewhere about the house, and each carried a lantern.
“It certainly looks mighty lonely to me for them boys to start off up that mountain alone,” sighed Pa McBirney. “But I couldn’t endure it to think of the stock going unfed.”
“You don’t suppose those dreadful people will get after Hi, too, do you?” Carin whispered to her mother. Mrs. Carson started and looked troubled.
“I declare Carin, I don’t know. I’m all at sea. I’ve read of things like this, but nothing of the sort ever came into my life before, and I can’t more than half believe it.”
“That’s just the way I feel, mamma. There’s a ring at the doorbell. Perhaps it’s the sheriff.”
It was the sheriff, Mr. James Coulter, a heavy man with small eyes and a square jaw, and with him was Haystack Thompson.
“You’ll have to excuse me for coming along,” Haystack apologized. “But I’m in this hunt to stay. Life’s been lagging along pretty slow with me lately and now here something comes that looks to me like a man’s work, and I’ll be plumbasted, if I don’t want a hand in it.”