Teddy gazed at his brother, a grin on his face.
“Spell it backwards!”
“Spell it—” Roy stopped and looked thoughtful. “Let’s see. R-u-s-t-l-e-r. Rustler! By jinks, Teddy, you’re right! Rustler! Who’d have thought it? The crazy guy. Using a thing like that for a name! Golly, he must be cookoo. Must think he’s a villain out of the middle ages. In those days a man would take for his name anything that—”
“You don’t say!” Teddy interrupted, laughing. “Well, that’s what Reltsur means, all right. Let’s get up and tell dad. Baby, that was some sleep! We got in about twelve, didn’t we? From twelve until—let’s see, one-thirty. Wow! I’m hungry! Let’s go down and see Ethel and Nell, and then we eat.”
As the boys descended the stairs, Teddy thought with a smile that but a few hours ago they weren’t sure whether they would ever see the old ranch again. They had expected a fierce fight, and were ready for it. They knew those rustlers could shoot, and Teddy and Roy had resigned themselves to whatever might occur. Yet they had met no one but an old woman and two punchers who played cards with Nick Looker! Teddy laughed aloud as he recalled Nick’s plaintive cry from the trail of Thunder Canyon:
“Hey, Roy, these two geezers won all my money playin’ seven-up!”
Outside, in the yard, Bug Eye was surrounded by a crowd to whom he was explaining the mysteries of his new carburetor. Belle and Ethel were standing arm in arm, and Mr. Manley was chuckling gleefully at Bug Eye’s attempt to show that a four-cylinder motor ran better when two of the cylinders refused to fire.
“She’s supposed to do that!” he was insisting. “That’s what this here doohickey is for—to con-serve gas! You see, yay, look who comes! Boys, you’re just in time! Make way! Make way, you vassels—or something like that. What’s the good word, boys?”
“Listen, and I’ll give you the low-down,” Roy laughed. “Dad, Teddy made a discovery—a stu-pen-dous discovery. He found out what Reltsur means!”
“He did, son? What is it?”