Both girls cried the name in an agony of horror and pity. Edith bent to her horse’s mane; and Lyn rode straight to Hobby Lull.
“Oh, Hobby! Be careful—come back to me!” She raised her lips to his. He took her in his arms and kissed her; she clung to him, shaken with sobbing. “Oh, poor Adam!” She cried. “Poor Adam!”
Charlie See turned away. For one heart beat of flinching his haunted soul looked from his eyes; then with a gray courage, he set his lips to silence. If his face was bleak—why not, for Adam, his friend?
And Edith Harkey, on her sad errand, envied the happy dead. She, alone of them all, had seen that stricken face.
“Lyn, you go on,” said Pete. “Get Barefoot. Then go home and find out where your Uncle Dan is, and send him along just as fast as ever God’ll let him come.”
He turned back to the men.
“Now, then, you fellows! Begin at the beginning. Hales, you didn’t know Adam, so you won’t be so bad broke up as the others. Suppose you tell us what you know. Wait a minute. Sam, you be saddling up a horse for me. Now, Mr. Hales?”
“We were looking out for that gang of saddle thieves. Went up ’Pache Cañon. Along in the park we saw tracks where two shod horses turned down into Redgate, and we followed them up. One of ’em had been chasing a bunch of cattle—or so we thought, though we didn’t notice that part very close, having no particular reason for it then. We’d looked through two-three bunches of cattle ourselves earlier, for Jody’s stuff.”
“Yes, and you had breakfast, likely—but what do I care? You get on with your story.”
“Say, old man,” said Hales in some exasperation, “if you don’t want this man caught, I’m satisfied. It’s nothing to me. I didn’t know Forbes. If you want this friend of yours to get away, I’m willing to get down and stay all night. You’re pretty overbearing with your little old shotgun.”