"What for, Butch'?" I asked.
"Nare yer mind, Mose! When I find the darned cuss, yer'll know, soon enough."
Of course, I went with him. But our search was a fruitless one. Cockrell had disappeared from Susanville the day before. No sooner had he heard that the Rangers had returned than he had quitted the place. When Hasbrouck found that this was positively so, he frankly told me the reason which induced him to search for the fellow.
"But if you had found him, Butch', what was it you meant to do?"
"What war it I meant to do? In course, shoot the darned blackguard."
Up to this moment, he had been as cool as a cucumber, or, rather, as the winter snow on Bear River during my campaign in that locality. Your quiet men are always dangerous, and so I told him. At the same time, I consoled him with the reflection that Cockrell's conduct had proved this fact. After abusing little Hattie Pierson like a dastardly cur, he had cleared out, immediately after the return of her plighted lover.
"P'raps yer're right, Mose!"
"I know I am, my boy! A white liver always tells. So has his."
"The varmint has run tu the nearest hole he could find," he said with a smile.
"If we catch him, we'll smoke him out."