“No; you can go and come when you are a mind to; but you be sure that you don’t come around our camp to-night!”
“You may be sure that I shall never come around there again. The next time you see me I shall be backed up by law!”
The man who held his bridle released it, and we sat in our saddles and saw Henderson gallop away, while the one who held the will folded it up and returned it to me. Henderson evidently knew where he was going, for he went in an awful hurry, and somehow I couldn’t get it out of my mind that Bob was going to see trouble over the will after all. As we turned about and went back to camp I said to our spokesman:
“Who is that officer who is going to examine the will? I suppose we shall have to go to Austin with Bob?”
“The surrogate? Yes, he is called that in some States, but what in the world he is called here I don’t know. I never had anything to do with the proving of wills, but we will go and see Mr. Chisholm. He will know all about it. By gum! you fellows got it, didn’t you? And you say that he and two other men were there in the house and all over it and never found it? Tell us all about it.”
It did not take me long to tell the cattlemen the history of our trip to the ranch and back, but I left out all allusions to Coyote Bill. I could do that and I knew that Tom wouldn’t betray me. When the spokesman asked me who the men were, I could tell him that one was Henderson and the other was ’Rastus Johnson. Who the other was I didn’t know, for I had been on the ranch all the time, and my opportunities for making acquaintances were very slight. I determined to tell Mr. Chisholm all about it, for I assure you I did not feel like having secrets from my friends.
“’Rastus Johnson! I never knew him, but his knowing something about that pocket-book proves that he is a snake in the grass. I wonder if he has anything to do with Coyote Bill?”
“There comes Bob Davenport!” exclaimed Tom suddenly. “He is more interested in what we have to tell than anybody else.”
I never was so glad of an interruption in my life. It got me out of a lie, plain enough. I looked around, and there was Bob waving his hat to us. It seems that the loss of his cattle had not hurt him any, for he had his coat off and was working with Mr. Chisholm’s men. When I saw him coming I pulled out the pocket-book and waved it over my head.