“Why?”
Allen hesitated.
“’Cause if he ketches me here, he’ll sure enough lock me up, an’ if he sees me afore he has time to forget things, he’ll paddle the stuffin’ out of me!”
At the ludicrous seriousness on Allen’s face the woman smiled. His expression was like that of a small boy who has been caught stealing apples. Then her heart swelled with pity. She knew him—she knew his job of saving herself and others was not yet finished. Yet he thought so little of his own life that his chief worry was of what Jack would do or think.
She watched him climb the trail that led to the shelf above the gulch and shook her head.
“Just let me ketch folks sayin’ anythin’ against him an’ I’ll empty a pan of b’ilin’ dishwater on ’em!” she said aloud.
Allen had hardly rejoined his two horses at the place where he had left them the night before when Slivers topped the rim of the gulch and rode toward him.
“Steve Brandon runs into the post office just after they close the mail bag an’ makes such a holler that they opens her up, an’ then he insists on droppin’ a letter in personal!” Slivers reported.
“That there stage will be along pronto!” Jim Allen cried, as he deftly tightened his cinches and swung into the saddle.
“I’m comin’ with yuh!” Slivers announced.