“Over there. I just rode by to get some duds I left here. But never mind ’em now,” he added suddenly. “I’ll get ’em later. Hope you choke.”
With this pleasant farewell, the man walked in the direction he had said his horse was tied. Teddy watched him go, a fixed look on his face.
“Cow-puncher, hey?” the boy muttered. “You’re as much a cow-puncher as I am a Chinaman! Let’s have a look at this toad-sticker.” He bent over and picked up the knife. Holding it up, he saw that the initials “J. K.” were burned in the handle. The blade was long and curved slightly.
“J. K.—the K standing for Marino,” the boy mused. “Some day we’ll have this little argument out, Mister J. K. Marino. But you won’t have one of these things in your hand when we do. Lucky for me I saw you make a dive for it, or I’d be plumb tired of living by now.”
A moment more he gazed at the knife, then absently he stuck it in his belt. Slowly he continued on his way to the bunk-house, to see Nat Raymond.
Before they turned in he told Roy of the occurrence. With the door of their room shut tight, so as not to disturb Mrs. Manley, the boys talked far into the night. When finally they switched off the light they had come to no decision except to agree that Marino was not to be allowed on X Bar X property again. Yet, had they known it, this was, in effect, locking the stable after the horse had been stolen.
While Teddy and Roy were talking things over in their room, another conversation, quite relative to theirs, was being carried on within the doors of the bunk-house. Despite the appeals of a few men to “can the chatter an’ go to sleep,” Nat Raymond and Pop Burns were verbally appointing themselves a committee of investigation.
“Me, I’m goin’ to try to find Gus an’ bring him back,” Pop declared, pulling hard on his pipe. “He’s too good a man to—Jim, take yore toe outa my eye! He’s too good a man to lose.”
“Well, then go an’ chin somewhere else!” Jim Casey ordered petulantly. “You guys loaf all day an’ want to stay up all night. Us, we got to work!”
“Who loafs all day?” Pop asked indignantly. “I do a blamed sight more work than you do, Jim Casey, young as you are! So fold that behind the rim of yore derby!”