“The hobo! He talks of downin’ gents like yuh does prairie hens, an’ we come near beatin’ hell out of him,” Tad Hicks exclaimed in an awe-struck whisper.
“But the girl! Snippets! What are you going to do about her?” Jim Hogg demanded impatiently.
“I thinks I knows where she is,” Allen replied wearily.
“Let’s get goin’ then!” The choleric little storekeeper seized his hat.
“It can’t be did. They got her over in the lava fields. I got to trail ’em. I found where they went in and I’ve got to pick the rest out,” Allen said flatly.
“We got twenty men out there and a hundred more scattered about. We’ll comb them hills and find her,” Jim Hogg insisted.
Allen shook his head.
Sam Hogg and the sheriff looked at each other. They knew Allen was lying. For if there had been a single chance of Snippets being taken over the border he would be wasting no time in words. They could not fathom why he was lying.
“Looka here, there ain’t no use being stubborn,” Jim Hogg growled at Allen. “We got to do something.”
“Go ahead,” Allen replied. He looked at Sam Hogg and added: “I’m goin’ now. Where’s them hosses of mine?”