"Oh, I'll do that, all right," asserted Cheyenne.
"But I'd go slow. You might talk like your stock had strayed and you were looking for them. Sneed and Panhandle Sears are pretty thick. I'd start easy, if I was in your boots."
This from the cautious Uncle Frank.
"But you'd go get 'em, if they happened to be your hosses," said Cheyenne. "You're always tellin' me to step light and go slow. I reckon you expect me to sing and laugh and josh and take all the grief that's comin' and forget it."
"No," said Uncle Frank deliberately. "If they was my hosses, I'd ride over and get 'em. But I can't step into your tangle. If I did, Sneed would just nacherally burn us out, some night. There's only two ways to handle a man like Clubfoot Sneed: one is to kill him, and the other is to leave him alone. And it's got to be one or the other when you live as close to the hills as we do. I aim to leave him alone, unless he tries to ride me."
"Which means that you kind of think I ought to let the hosses go, for fear of gettin' you in bad."
Uncle Frank shook his head, but said nothing. Bartley smoked a cigar and listened to the conversation that followed. Called upon by Uncle Frank for his opinion, Bartley hesitated, and then said that, if the horses were his, he would be tempted to go and get them, regardless of consequences. Bartley's stock went up, with Little Jim, right there.
Cheyenne turned to Uncle Frank. "I'm ridin' over to Clubfoot's wikiup to-morrow mornin'. I'll git my hosses, or git him. And I'm ridin' alone."
Little Jim, meanwhile, had been raking his mind for an idea as to how he might attract attention. He disappeared. Presently he appeared in front of the veranda with the end of a long rope in his fist. He blinked and grinned.
"What's on the other end of that rope?" queried Uncle Frank, immediately suspicious.