Cheyenne nodded and reined his horse round.
"Why, your shirt is almost ripped from your back!" said Bartley.
"My hoss shied, back yonder, and stepped off into the brush. We kept on through the brush. It was shorter."
Dorothy mounted her horse, and, nodding farewell to Bartley, accompanied Cheyenne to the ranch. When they were halfway there, Dorothy, who had been riding thoughtfully along, saying nothing, turned to her companion: "Cheyenne, you had trouble up there. You might at least tell me about it."
"Well, Miss Dorry--" And Cheyenne told her how Jimmy had followed him, how he had sent Jimmy back, and the unexpected appearance of that young hopeful in the timber near Sneed's cabin. "I was in there, figurin' hard how to get my hosses and get away, when, somehow, Jimmy got to the corral and turned Sneed's stock loose and hazed 'em down the trail. But where he run 'em to is the joke. I figured he would show up at our camp. It would be just like him to run the whole bunch into the ranch corral. And I reckon he done it."
"But, Mr. Sneed!" exclaimed Dorothy. "If he finds out we had anything to do with running off his horses--"
"He never saw Jimmy clost enough to tell who he was. 'Course, Sneed knows Aunt Jane is my sister, and most he'll suspicion is that I got help from some of my folks. But so far he don't know who helped me turn the trick."
"You don't seem to be very serious about it," declared Dorothy.
"Serious? Me? Why, ain't most folks serious enough without everybody bein' took that way?"
"Perhaps. But I knew something had happened the minute you rode into camp."