"Say, fellers, I'll tell you a job that would suit me—"
"Hain't got any work into it if it does."
"What is it?"
"I'd like to be detailed to guard these 'queens' from monkeys like you."
The others fell upon this reckless one with their hats and gloves till he broke into a run, and all disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.
XXI
IN STORMY COUNCILS
Meanwhile the sentinels on the hills missed little of the movement in the valley. They quivered with rage as the horsemen dismounted and entered the agent's house, for that seemed a defeat for their friend; but when the strangers remounted and rode away all were reassured, and Two Horns said, "I will go down and see what it all means."
One by one the principal native employés reappeared. Crane's Voice came out of the barn, where he had lain with his eyes to a crack in the wall, and Peter Big-Voice and Robert Wolf stepped cautiously into view from behind the slaughter-pen. Old Mary, the cook, suddenly blocked the kitchen door-way, and, with tremulous lips, asked: "Cowboys gone?"