Silent grasped Teddy’s hand.
“Buddy,” he said feelingly, “you’re O. K. with me. I owe you plenty.” He grinned. “Besides this here eye an’ jaw, I mean. Reckon I had ’em comin’ to me.”
The hands gripped and parted. There was that pause that so often comes when two people suddenly meet as friends. It was Roy who broke the silence.
“Personally, I’d recommend a visit to the old pump for both of you,” he said dryly. “You’re enough to scare any cows.”
“Let’s go,” Teddy suggested quickly. “There’s some water behind the station. I have a clean handkerchief that’ll do for a towel.”
“An’ with that he walks off,” Conroy snickered. “Baby, wasn’t that a scrap? Never saw the like. Fightin’ fools, them two. Silent, he ain’t no slouch, let me tell you. Yet your brother certainly laid him out pretty. Laid him out, an’ saved his life. Say, listen, Manley.” His tone grew more serious. “Some people get a wrong slant on Silent. They think he’s ornery. He ain’t, nothin’ like it. He’s just naturally quiet. Most people think his breakfast soured on him. But if you’d had your brother shot down before your eyes, an’ seen your old man try to get the killers an’ stop a bullet hisself, I reckon—” he stopped in confusion. “An’ I promised Silent I wouldn’t say nothin’ about it!” he declared regretfully.
“Did that happen to Neville?” Roy demanded.
“It sure did. They had a cabin about three hundred miles from here—him, his dad, an’ brother. Then—well, here he is.”
“Who shot them?”
“Oh, a couple of waddies. Silent saw ’em, him lyin’ on a cot burnin’ up with fever. He tried to get ’em, but, shucks, what could he do? They robbed the shack of a thousand dollars in gold that old man Neville had just bought from a miner and vamoosed. So here I am, an’ here Silent is.” He turned away.