“I suppose not,” said Tom, who could not help feeling the most profound contempt for his lying partner. “Now what did you steal?”
“Wal, that thar aint by no means so triflin’,” replied Lish, once more lowering his voice and glancing suspiciously about him. “I reckon mebbe we’d best move on an’ change our camp afore one of them sergeants comes down here with a squad. I seed a young leftenant down thar to the settlement, an’ I kinder thought he was arter me by the way he looked; but I had disremembered all about stealin’ that thar muel from Ike Barker last summer. The kurn knows it, I reckon.”
“Of course he does!” replied Tom promptly.
“Who told him?”
“My brother did. He’s just that sort.”
“What’s he got ag’in me, do you reckon?” asked Lish, who seemed to be all in the dark.
“Nothing at all. He wants to injure me, and the only way he can do it is by breaking up our expedition. He knows that I am going to make money this winter, and he doesn’t like it. He wants to keep me away from the hills, and that is the reason he is trying to have you arrested.”
“I wish I could bring the sights on my rifle an’ the tip eend of his nose in range for jest half a minute,” said the wolfer in savage tones, as he came out of the bushes and led the way down the ravine. “I’d make him think creation was comin’, sure!”
“I don’t want you to shoot at him,” said Tom, who need not have had any fear on this score. “I only want you to help me serve him as he is trying to serve me. He is getting on in the world altogether too fast.”
“Wharabouts in the hills is him an’ Big Thompson goin’?”