“Dry up,” Pop said succinctly. “We all make mistakes. But if you want to, Roy, we’ll land an’ take a look. Think it would do any good?”
“Not a bit,” Roy decided. “We’d only waste our time. I wonder if that waddy could have been following us?”
“Hardly, if he didn’t know we were here,” Teddy replied. “And it’s a cinch we surprised him, because he ducked like a scared rabbit. Nope, we just happened to run across him, that’s all. If we had only been on land!”
“If the cow hadn’t stopped to chase a fly off her back, the train wouldn’t have hit her,” Roy retorted facetiously. “Suppose we had caught The Pup? What would we have done with him?”
“Plenty,” Teddy answered. “Gotten some of dad’s four hundred smackies back, anyway. He can’t have spent it all this soon. Chances are, he’s got most of it with him.”
“What he ain’t spent fer booze,” Bug Eye interjected contemptuously. “The Pup ain’t worth the powder to blow him up, though I’d chip in my little bit to stand part of the expense if any one wanted to try it,” he chuckled. “Well, I guess you can kiss the money goodbye, Roy. An’ the bronc too. Whatever you say about The Pup, he sure can ride, an’ he’ll be ridin’ fer election by now. You boys tired paddlin’? I’ll spell one of yuh, if yuh wants me to.”
Pop accepted his offer, and once more the canoe slid on toward the rapids, still many miles downstream. There was much talk of the possibility of seeing The Pup again, and Teddy was in favor of unlimbering one of the rifles that lay in the bottom of the boat on the chance. But Roy vetoed this idea, saying it was very necessary that they keep the guns dry and clean.
“Those rifles are our dinner-checks, you know,” he added. “When we land, we’ve got to look lively and do a bit of hunting if we want to eat. Sun’s almost down. We ought to make camp shortly. Soon as you see a likely spot, Bug Eye, head for it.”
There was a run of some fifteen minutes while not a word was spoken. The only sound was the regular dip, dip, dip of the paddles, propelling the canoe onward. Pop, the extremist, was either so talkative that he’d “gab the ear off a brass monkey,” to use Nick Looker’s expression, or else he kept strict silence. Bug Eye was content to dream of the possibilities of his Fishmobile, and Teddy was wondering how his father was making out.
“They ought to be about in a line with us,” the boy thought, “though far back behind those mountains. Hope they reach the cattle about the time we get there. If that herd has done much wandering—” He shook his head dubiously.