On either side of it two men rode on dark horses. The sheriff signed to the cortège to stop, and by the time that we had descended to this party the waggon was turned about.
"Well," said the sheriff to Slim who was driving the team, his horse hitched behind, "you got it from him. Was he kind o' slow about lendin' it?"
"Nosiree," said Slim. "He was settin' on a dump near the cable-house when I got to the mine, settin' shying crusts o' punk at the chipmunks—they 've a pow'ful lot of them around the Molly Magee—and he seemed kind o' astonished to see me. 'Up to business?' he says, 'up to business? You ain't goin' to take him away from me?' he says, meanin', of course, the violinist——"
Apache said to me at that: "Remind me to tell you what he means—about the violinist."
"So I jest tells him no," continued Slim, "and asked him the loan o' one of his waggons, and he says, 'What for?' And I takes him by the lapel o' his coat an' says, 'Can you keep a secret?' and he says then, 'Aha,' he says, 'I know what it is. You got Apache Kid on the hill there and you want the waggon to get him through the city for fear o' any of the boys tryin' to get a shot at him.' Says I: 'Who told you? Guess again.' And he says he reckoned he would lend me the waggon, and right pleased" (Slim shot a meaning look at Apache Kid), "but as for keepin' quiet, that was beyond him, he said."
"Dern!" said the sheriff. "So he 'll be telling the Magee boys and havin' 'em comin' huntin' after us, like enough, for our prisoner, if feelin' is high about this."
Slim laid a finger to his nose. "Nosiree," said he. "I jest told him if he could n't keep holt o' our secret for three hours, and give us a start, that first thing he knew we'd come along and be liftin' his violinist, some fine day, along with a nice French policeman or sheriff, or what they call 'em there—grand army or something—all the way from Paris."
The sheriff gloated on this.
"That would tighten him up some," said he.
"It did," replied Slim, and would have continued to pat himself on the back for his diplomacy, I believe, but the sheriff turned abruptly to Apache Kid and me and ordered us with a new sharpness, because of the newcomers, I suppose, to get into the waggon; and soon we were going briskly down-hill, the four mounted men riding two by two on either side, the sheriff loping along by the team's side and my pack-horse trotting behind, with Slim's mount in charge of the Indian.