“Did you go back on me, Carlos?”
“That’s a pretty question for a man to ask,” I answered, scowling savagely at Henderson. “I knew you could shoot as well as anybody.”
“That’s what I knew, too. Come on, Pete! If Henderson is afraid to trust them, he can stay here with them.”
But that was something Henderson was not prepared to do. He wanted to be close to the men when they found that pocket-book, for there was so much in it that he was afraid to trust them alone with it; so when they moved off and crawled under the ranch, he went with them. Tom and I returned to our seats on the porch, saying never a word to each other, and for an hour listened to the movements of the men that were under the house. Sometimes I was almost certain they had found it, but when they came out after their search was over, I told myself that the invalid had never hidden anything under there, for they were as dirty as they could well be. They were all mad, but Coyote Bill brightened up when he saw me.
“Well, Carlos, you think you won’t go with me?” said he.
“And steal cattle?” I exclaimed.
“Well, that’s what some folks call it,” said Bill, with a laugh.
“No, I think I will stay here and be honest. I find I can make a living better that way than I can by stealing. Are you going to give up the search?”
“We might as well. There is no pocket-book here, or if there is it is hidden where no one will ever find it. So we may as well give it up and go down there to Trinity.”
Henderson was not yet satisfied. He had given the under part of the house a good overhauling, had prodded every little mound of earth that looked as though it might recently have been thrown up, and now he was going to try the upper part. He had brought a stick with him, and with it he dug down in the fireplace until he went so far that the solid earth resisted his efforts, and all the while the men stood by watching him. After that he devoted his attention to the things we had taken off the beds, throwing them into one corner, and when the last handful of hay had been tossed aside he was obliged to confess that there was nothing there.