"Oh, nothin'," Purdy answered with a show of indifference, "only—I was just thinkin'."
"Thinkin', mebbe, to slip over an' pull a hold-up?"
"Well, they's more dinero in one haul there than they is in a half a dozen horse raids. Pete, here, he says he knows about handlin' soup."
"Be'n talkin' it over, eh?" there was a sneer in Grimshaw's voice. "Figure because you've helped pull off a few good horse deals, you're a regular outlaw? Want to tackle banks, an' express boxes? The horse game's got too slow, eh? Tired of follerin' my lead?"
Purdy interrupted with a gesture of impatience: "Hell—no! We thought, maybe, you'd——"
"Thought I'd turn bank robber, eh? Thought I'd quit a game where I hold all the aces, an' horn in on one where I don't hold even a deuce to draw to? Bitin' off more'n he c'n chaw has choked more'n one feller. Right here in Choteau County they's some several of 'em choked out on the end of a tight one, because they overplayed their hand. I'm a horse-thief—an' a damn good one. You fellers is good horse-thieves, too—long as you've got me to do yer thinkin'. My business is runnin' off horses an' sellin' 'em—an' I ain't holdin' up no banks fer a side line. If I ain't able to pull a bank job, how in hell be you forty-dollar-a-month cow hands goin' to do it? So don't go lettin' me hear any more of that talk." He paused and looked his hearers over with narrowed eyes: "An' if any of you feel like trying it on yer own hook—if you don't git away with it, the sheriff'll git you—an' if you do, I'll git you—so, take yer pick."
There was no more talk of bank robbery. Grimshaw planned a horse raid that was successful, but the heart of the leader was troubled and always he kept close watch on Purdy. And Purdy gave him no grounds for suspicion, nevertheless he was busy with his own thoughts, and way back in his brain was an ever present vision—the vision of a squat, bow-legged man, dangling limp across the front of his saddle.
The next friction between them came one evening when Grimshaw announced that there was a new nester over on Red Sand Creek.
"Is he—right?" asked Bill.
The leader nodded: "Yeh, it's Cinnabar Joe, that used to tend bar in the Headquarters saloon in Wolf River. Him an' that there Jennie Dodds that used to work in the hotel's got married an' filed along the crick, 'bout four mile above McWhorter's."