“Why didn’t yuh bring the guns in with yuh?” growled the bigger of the two who hadn’t left the camp-fire.
“Too much trouble. I hid ’em where they’ll never find ’em.”
“Well,” said the big man, “do we go on up and scare the kids out of a year’s growth? Are you sure they’ve got the map? It was talked around in Nophi that they was goin’ out hunting f’r tungsten, an’ the like o’ that.”
“Didn’t I see it with my own eyes?” snapped the cripple. “An’ didn’t I hear Starbuck tellin’ ’em all about th’ Golden Spider? ’Tis a sure thing, I tell you! This tungsten business is all a frame-up. Starbuck’s got a safe pointer on that gold mine, and he’s sendin’ the boys because he figures that nobody’d think a bunch o’ college boys’d be out for anything but a good time in th’ big hills.”
“Well,” said the smaller of the two fire-keepers, “this is your show, Twisty. What do you say?”
“There’s only one thing to say. If we could get over Mule-Ear with th’ bronc’s, I’d say, let ’em go on ahead an’ find th’ mine f’r us. But th’ horses can’t make the trail, an’ it thawin’ an’ freezin’ every day, though the jacks can. We’ll wait f’r an hour ’r so, till the trail’s froze good an’ hard, then we’ll go up an’ get th’ map an’ the jacks and their outfit and grub-stake an’ go on.”
“Leavin’ the kids behind, yuh mean?” said the big man.
“Surest thing you know!” barked the cripple. “They’ll find their way back to Nophi, an’ that’ll be the end of it.”
“But if we leave the horses, that’ll give us away,” objected the third robber.
“I fixed that before we left Nophi,” said the man with a crutch. “Barkey Davis’ll be on his way up the canyon at daybreak, and if he finds the bronc’s left behind, he’ll take ’em back. If he don’t find ’em, he’ll know we’ve gone on. ’Tis all fixed.”