With a reluctant sigh he knocked the snow off his boots against the runner, as he was about to step into the sleigh. He seated himself beside Moak, and drew the buffalo-robe up over his breast, and said, "All right, go ahead!"
Moak grinned, in spite of his ill-temper.
"I didn't think it'd be as bad as that, Norm," he chuckled, "drivin' you clean out of your senses. Why, man, you're goin' away without your overcoat!"
"No. You mind your own business, Moak!" rejoined the deputy marshal, getting one of his shoulders under the robe.
"Shall I run in and get it for you?" suggested Job, half-turning to hasten on the errand.
"You mind your business, too!" said Hazzard, with affected roughness, but with an undertone of humane meaning which both his hearers caught and comprehended. "And look here, boy, if you and the old man find yourselves in need of help, why, you know where I'm to be found. Meanwhile you'd better take this." He handed something to Job.
Mr. Moak cast a look of hostile suspicion at the urchin by the roadside.
"Guess he's more likely to know where Mose Whipple's to be found!" Moak said. Then he drew the reins tight with a jerk, gave a loud, emphatic cluck to the horse, and the sleigh went dashing southward amid a defiant jingling of bells.
The boy stood watching till the vehicle had become a mere dwindling point of blackness on the sunlit waste of snow.
Then he turned his attention to the greenback which the deputy marshal had given him, and looked meditatively at the big and significant "5" on its right-hand corner.