Jake Harper inspected the two slender figures, hands on his hips.
“Dog-gone it!” he broke out plaintively. “Here I been ridin’ and crawlin’ in the bresh all day, and now you-all aims to go away, and figgers I’m too blamed wore out to trail along! Why don’t you stick around and talk a while, Robinson?”
“What you want to go for, Jake?” queried Robinson softly. “S’pose Buck and Pincher Brady, or Murphy, comes ridin’ along here in about half an hour to inquire about the red-headed stranger what took the wrong road to Laredo and met up with Matt Brady and Knute—huh? If you wasn’t here, where’d I be? That’s a conundrum.”
“And what’s the answer to the durned thing?” asked the old plainsman.
“That you’re the fanciest liar ever I did see, Jake, when it’s plumb necessary. Also, that you don’t give a hoot for Buck—and if you was setting on your front porch with the lights out and a Winchester handy, Buck and his friends would be mighty slow about startin’ any ructions with you.”
“Oh!” said Jake, fingering his very black mustache. “I see! You think I’d lie to save your worthless neck?”
“You seen Matt Brady draw first, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh, now I think about it—he done so.” Jake Harper chuckled. “That’s all right, boy; I know what’s stirrin’ in your fool brain, too. Ye think the Circle Bar bunch is too old an’ helpless to stir much, huh? Well, jest you go along. Take anything you fancy in the corral, boys, and remember me to Estella. I’ll be over myself in a day or two.”
Arnold and Robinson started away together, and lost themselves in the shadows near the corral. Robinson touched his companion’s arm.
“Steve, any time you think old Jake is slow, guess again! Friend Buck is coming along here pretty soon, and he’ll run into a surprise party. Meantime, we’ll be elsewhere.”