Purdy nodded: "She's layin' up agin' the mouth of a coulee, 'bout two mile or so this side of Red Sand."
Long Bill removed his hat, scratched his head, and stared out over the river. Finally he spoke: "See her clost up?"
"Yup. Went right down to her."
Another pause, and with a vast show of indifference Long Bill asked: "Anyone in her?"
"No."
"Any tracks around—like anyone had be'n there?"
"Not none except what I made myself. Look a-here, Bill; what you so damned anxious to find that ferry fer? It would cost you more to haul it back upstream than what it would to build you a new one."
"Sure they wasn't no one there? No one could of got off her an' struck back in?"
"Not onless they could of flew," opined Purdy, "how'd she come to bust loose?"
Long Bill burst into a tirade of profanity that left him breathless. "I'll tell you how come she bust loose," he roared, when he had sufficiently recovered to proceed, "that damned son of a—of a Texian stoled her—him an' the pilgrim's woman!"