“Doc said he’d been there early this morning and gone,â€� Roy declared. “We might have had a chance if I had called up sooner. Well—â€�
“The doc couldn’t have held him,� Mr. Manley broke in. “Suppose it happened to be the wrong man? Doc ’ud be in a fine fix then. No, boys, we’ve got to work this thing out for ourselves. No use foolin’ around. The thing to do is to ride that varmint down an’ snub his horns so he can’t do no more damage. Seems to me he’s got a streak of real meanness in him. Didn’t do him no good a-tall to steal that flivver. He just wanted to act up. Well, his time will come. An’ when it does, he’s got an awful lot to account for!�
Bug Eye made his appearance at six o’clock. He had slept off his wild anger at finding his flivver wantonly wrecked, but still the indignity of being made to walk all those miles to the X Bar X smouldered within him. A cowboy’s legs are not for walking, they are to keep him steady on a horse.
Upon being told of Roy’s adventure with Froud, Bug Eye asked Mr. Manley for a horse to ride after the rustler, but he was persuaded to calm down and sit tight for a bit.
“This waitin’ gets on my nerves,� he proclaimed to the world in general. “If I had my way, I’d get a gang together an’ stick so close to that hoss-thief’s neck that his feet would bust through the soles of his shoes.�
“Yea, an’ have his head for cover, pronto,� Nick sneered, “with twenty head of yore cattle, our three horses, an’ Pete knows how much else. Then where’d we be? No sir, the thing to do is to go about this thing like you was eatin’ custard pie. Soft an’ easy, but sure to get there. We don’t want no more flare-backs. Twice we almost stumbled on their heels, an’ both times they stepped out o’ their shoes an’ vamoosed right quick. Why, Teddy an’ Roy got within shootin’ distance of Froud up on Mica Mountain, but it didn’t do no good, an’ it wasn’t the boys’ fault that they got away, either. So when we get ’em, we want to get ’em good. None of this half-way business for us.�
This seemed the general consensus of opinion at the X Bar X, and nothing was done immediately except to notify the sheriff at Hawley that a hold-up had occurred and that some property was stolen from a car.
“Though I might as well have told a cigar store Indian for all the good it’ll do,� Mr. Manley declared, with a grim laugh. “That sheriff is more politics than he is sheriff. Whatever roundin’ up of thieves we want done, we’ve got to do ourselves.�
CHAPTER XXI
NEWS FROM THE 8 X 8
The next morning Peter Ball sent a car for Nell and Ethel, and, together with Bug Eye, the girls went back to the 8 X 8. Roy and Teddy were sorry to see them go, as was Belle Ada, but they consoled themselves with the thought that they could easily ride over to the Ball ranch later and see them. It was arranged that Belle should go on a visit to the 8 X 8 before the summer was over.