For the first four or five miles the two rode in complete silence, as there was danger of encountering some of the men assigned to night riding. They passed no riders, and McAllister swore to himself when he realized that they were crossing the best part of the range and that it should have been covered with bedded cattle—yet they passed scarcely a hundred head.
After they had left the danger zone behind, McAllister told Allen of what had taken place in town that afternoon. The little outlaw listened in silence.
“Yuh say this here ol’ Miser gent didn’t scare none when Spur talked of puttin’ the twins on him?” he asked, when the older man had finished his tale.
“Not any—but he sure colored aplenty when Dot looked scornful at him,” the other replied.
Allen made no further remark.
“A gent like him don’t usually have nerve, but Spur didn’t scare him worth a cent,” McAllister said, after a time.
“That ain’t no sign he’s got nerve,” Allen said carelessly.
Again they rode in silence.
“Drat him,” McAllister grumbled to himself, “I ain’t the kind of gent what loves to hear my own voice, but that darn little half pint never talks a-tall unless he’s pryin’ somethin’ loose from the back of your head that yuh forgot yourself.”
After they had covered some fifteen miles across the broken flats, McAllister suddenly realized that it was Allen who was doing the guiding. In that black night it would have been necessary for him to stop occasionally and peer about for some landmarks, but Allen made his way across arroyos, through clumps of brush, with the sure instinct of a homing animal.