“Yep.”
“Why don’t yuh open yuhr mouth and let the words come out, instead of choking yuhrself on ’em, and makin’ me explain to myself what yuh aim to say?” Toothpick asked scornfully.
Dutchy grunted, drew his rifle out of the boot beneath his saddle flap and balanced it across the pommel.
“If we’re goin’ to war, I’m sure plenty glad to have yuh along,” Toothpick grumbled as he followed the example of his companion; “but yuh sure ain’t no gent to relieve the tedium of existence with light chatter.”
Accustomed as they were to the grim tragedies of the border, they were totally unprepared to find what they did close to the burning house. There was nothing left save smoldering rafters and bare adobe walls. Toothpick swung from his horse and quickly extinguished some brush that had been fired by a spark. Then he gave an exclamation and cried sharply:
“Hey, Dutchy, come here!”
Dutchy was a grizzled two-gun fighter who, rumor said, had once ridden “the long trail.” He had lived close to the border all his life, yet he winced when he saw what the white-faced Toothpick pointed out to him.
A scant five yards from the doorway of the house, the body of a man lay half concealed in the brush. It was mutilated and scalped.
“Apache?” Toothpick queried as he slid a nervous hand to the hammer of his rifle and cast apprehensive glances into the darkness.
“Maybe so,” Dutchy said shortly. “Let’s see if we can find any others.”