"Eh? How's that? I ain't followed."
"Jest like this. He's fresh now we'll 'low, and ef he's able he'll push on all through the night. To-morrow he'll still be going; but when night falls he'll be wanting a rest, and so, you may say, shall we be. Now, ef half this outfit pushes on, Hurley has to move ahead, and it'll be slow travelling. Our chaps'll go afoot, so as to rest the hosses. At dawn the rest of us rides along the trace after 'em, and can cover the ground mighty quick in comparison, seeing that it's daylight. Wall, we leave half the hosses with the fust party, who're resting, and push ahead. Our chums gets a four-hour sleep and comes along after. Both of us is fresh that night, while Hurley can't hardly keep his eyes open. It aer as clear as daylight."
The little man shut up like an oyster. He drew a pipe as diminutive as himself from an inner pocket, crammed it with tobacco while his eyes rested dreamily on the forest, and then struck flint and steel with such unerring skill that he soon had the weed smouldering.
"It aer as clear as daylight," he puffed at the company. "Ef things goes in the ordinary way, Hurley'll be taken just when I've hinted, and he'll be in jail come the week-end."
"And supposin' they don't go along in the ordinary course?" asked Mike, who, from his experience, thought highly of the taciturn Hank. "It ain't of much use to set out follerin' a criminal and expecting him to do jest as you want him to. You've got to make allowance fer all sorts of strange turns. He's making north; he might fall in with some wandering Indians, or a prospecting gang, and get off along with them because of their help."
"Yep!" answered the usually silent Hank, with accustomed brevity. "Guess he might. Even so, we ain't done with him. This outfit's out to catch a ruffian who wants catching badly."
"You bet!" agreed Peter, with a quick shake of his head.
"A brute who's been and murdered his wife," cried Jim, his face flushing.
"The sort of bully whose capture we must make our duty," declared Jack Bailey, not the least enthusiastic of the party.
"Yep!" responded Hank. "So it comes to this, Mike. Supposin' he does do something we can't yet guess at, why, where's the odds? We still goes on after him. And sooner or later, barrin' regular bad luck, we'll have him. That's what I'm out fer. Guess it's the same with you and the other partners."