"What were you doing chasing that team? What was the game in that?"
"Well, he shot at us first," answered the boy.
And Busby shouted from his position in the corner on the floor, "Shut up, you fool!"
The ranger smiled. "Oh, it's got to all come out, Busby. I saw the man on the sorrel horse fire that shot—don't forget that. And I know who made the tracks in the flour. But I am beginning to wonder if you had anything to do with warning the Kauffmans to get out."
He had indeed come to the end of his questioning, for his captives refused to utter another word, and he himself fell silent, his mind engaged with the intricacies of this problem. It might be that these young dare-devils just happened to meet Kauffman on the road and decided to hold him up. It was possible that they knew nothing of the warnings which had been sent. But in that case, who pushed that final warning under the door? Who let them know of trouble from above?
Dawn was creeping up the valley, and, calling young Kitsong from the doze into which he had fallen, he said: "Now, Henry, I'm going to take this bunch down to the sheriff, and you might as well make up your mind to it first as last. You go out and saddle up while the señorita heats up some more coffee, and we'll get ready and start."
Hanscom was by no means as confident as his voice sounded, and, as the young fellow rose to go, only half expected him to show his face again. "Well, let him slip," he said to himself. "I'll be safer without him."
Busby spoke up from the floor. "You stay with the game, Hank, and you ride your own horse."
"You bet I'll ride my own horse," Kitsong violently retorted, from the doorway.
The girl, who understood the significance of this controversy, interposed. "I'll ride the sorrel. He's my horse, anyway."