Teddy nodded. He recalled the look on his father’s face the other day in the yard, as, with a savage gesture, he had thrown the mysterious note to the ground.
“Dad certainly seems changed,” Teddy said slowly. At the steps, leading to the porch of the house, the boys paused for a moment to take one last look around. From the corral came the noise of restless horses, moving about, rubbing against the bars, now and then neighing.
“Wonder what’s bothering them,” Roy said, more to himself than to Teddy. “I suppose it’s just one of the nights when the cattle want to be walking around instead of resting. I notice that happens mostly on nights when the moon is full. Maybe that has something to do with it. Jimminy, it sounds like a horse convention going on. There—that’s Star whinnying—I could tell him a mile off. I got a good notion to—”
“Come on, hit the hay,” Teddy said, with a laugh. “You want to dream about rustlers all night? You will, by jinks, if you don’t snap out of it. Star’s all right. You don’t have to sing him a lullaby every time he gets insomnia, you know. Let’s go. Put the hall light out, will you?”
The young ranchers ascended the stairs softly to their room. In little more than five minutes both were ready for bed. Roy switched the light off and crawled under the covers.
Out in the corral the horses still moved restlessly. The figure of a man on foot, pressed against one of the far posts so as to be out of sight from the house, seemed to annoy the ponies greatly.
CHAPTER XI
Nick’s Trick
A few days after the boys had taken Belle to the 8 X 8, Nick Looker, seated on the side of his bunk, was showing the assemblage a new trick he had lately acquired from a book called “A Hundred Ways to Amuse Your Friends.”
About him were grouped several punchers of the X Bar X, and also Roy and Teddy. Nick held up his hand.