"Well," said Jack, as Hugh's form grew smaller and smaller in the distance, "what do you suppose this means, Joe?"
"I don't know," said Joe, "except what Hugh said. If he finds these horses belong to your uncle, why I expect maybe he'll come back, and we'll have to go up there and kill the man that stole them, and take them back."
"Oh, nonsense, Joe, Hugh didn't mean anything like that. Don't you know, he said there weren't horses enough in Wyoming to pay for our lives? That means that there isn't going to be any fighting."
"Well," said Joe, "maybe then if he finds they're your horses, we'll have to go up there and steal them, and take them back that way."
Jack slapped his thigh with his hand, as he said, "That would be bully, wouldn't it? It would be real fun to steal horses, and have all the excitement of it, and yet know that you were not doing any harm, only getting back your own.
"Well, anyway," he continued, "we've got to look out mighty sharp for things, for whatever Hugh said has got to be done. I remember one time when I failed to do as he told me, and I got the worst scare that I ever had in all my life. That was the time when Hezekiah and young Bear Chief caught me in swimming." Joe grinned appreciatively, as he said, "I heard about that a good many times."
"I suppose you have," said Jack; "that's always been a good joke on me."
CHAPTER XXI
HUGH GOES "ON DISCOVERY"
Meantime, Hugh was loping fast up the bottom of the Platte, on the trail of the horses. It seemed to him to have been made the day before; and this would agree very well with the length of time that the mare bearing Mr. Sturgis' brand seemed to have been dead. It was not easy to tell, out here in the open under the hot sun and in the dry wind, just when the tracks had been made.