“What sort of a cowboy was he?” asked Dick. “Did he have stars on his heels?”
“Stars on his heels? Why, how you talk!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife. “I never heard of such a thing! Stars on his heels!”
“I mean did he have heel plates with stars on them?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Nixon. “But when I told him I hadn’t seen a deer he went away. He took a short cut across my flower beds, too. But I must say he didn’t step on any.”
“Has it rained since then?” asked Dick.
“Rained? What’s that got to do with it? No, it hasn’t.”
Dick ran to where he could see several beds of flowers at the side of the house. Anxiously he bent over to look at the soft ground.
“Yes, it’s the same cowboy!” he exclaimed. “I can see the marks of his star heel plates. That’s why I asked if it had rained. Rain would have washed them away. But they are plain yet.”
“Land sakes!” exclaimed Mrs. Nixon. “What you boys don’t do!”
“Did this cowboy have a lasso?” asked Dick.