“Suits me,” Teddy agreed. Then: “Kind of quiet here to-night; don’t you think so, Roy?”
“What do you expect, a brass band?” his brother grinned. “Golly, Teddy, you don’t mean to say it’s getting you, too?”
“Is what getting me?” the other countered, though he knew well enough what Roy meant. He guided the car toward the garage. “What do you mean, Roy?”
“That note,” his brother responded laconically. “And the horseman we heard—but didn’t see. And the puncher who rides leaning to the left in the saddle. And the whole blamed, silly business! How about it—am I talking straight or shall I elucidate?”
Teddy climbed stiffly out of the driver’s seat and walked toward the large doors of the auto shed. Halfway there he turned.
“I get you,” the boy said shortly. “Roy, you’re right. I’ve been thinking. These things that are happening, though they seem small and insignificant, all mean something. I’ll lay a bet on that.” He stopped and mused for a moment. “It’s hard to explain, but I feel as though some one or something were waiting around to sock me in the neck with a juicy tomato when my back is turned. And I don’t like it, by jinks! I don’t like it! Why don’t they start something? If the rustlers would show their hand, we’d know what we were up against. But this waiting, without knowing what for, is getting me sort of nervous, I don’t mind saying!” He strode forward, and flung one of the doors shut savagely.
Roy was closing the other, and until the garage was closed and locked he did not speak.
“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” he then said in a low voice. “I’ve been thinking those things for the past two or three days. And let me tell you something—dad has too. He may not say much, but he’s worried all the same. He hasn’t quite gotten over the time we had with that bunch of horse thieves only a little while ago, and he doesn’t want it to happen again. That’s why he wanted more men to ride herd. When he went to Eagles a few days ago, he toted a gun. You knew that?”
Teddy grunted affirmatively. The two boys walked toward the house.
“He didn’t have it on to-day, but maybe he took it off because he didn’t want to worry mother,” Roy went on. “Dad knows there are a few men in Eagles that wouldn’t cry if he disappeared in a sort of general way, like being shot up. And he’s not going to give them a gun, butt first—not if I know dad!”