“What did he say?”
“Oh, he glared at me, as though he was a bull buffalo and I was a ky-yote, ’n’ just says ‘dead and buried,’ and then he marched off as if he’d been sent for. I’ll get even with that sardine yet!”
This was a pretty accurate account of what really had passed between them. In fact, Morris had just been hunting with “Buckeye Jim” Bowen all that week, and knew he was
SCOTTY AND OLD BOB.
Silver Caves, [Page 74.]
as much alive as anybody had need to be; but Morris hated Bob, thought he had no business to be playing the hypocrite and asking questions about what was none of his affair, and so sent him off with this short and reckless answer, not thinking or caring how much Bob might believe of it.
“So the Terror’s passed in his checks, eh?” was Scotty’s comment. “He wasn’t a bad sort of a party. I used to know him in Illinoy. They runned him off because they said he stole some horses,—fine nags they was, too. But it turned out he wasn’t the feller after all. I could ’a’ told ’em all the time they was wrong, only it wouldn’t a’-been quite healthy.”
“Why?” asked Stevens, whose wits were not of the quickest. “Did you know the right man?”