Ross laughed. "Well, Uncle Weimer, my legs seem to want to carry me where I can get the Cody news. I want to hear about Mr. Leonard. Perhaps he has heard from father more recently than I."
There was no moon that night, and the sky had become suddenly overcast so that Ross faced a dense darkness pierced only by the candle-light from the window of the McKenzie shack. He stumbled toward this, feeling his way so slowly along the narrow trail that he unwittingly approached the cabin silently and surprised an altercation within. Sandy’s voice was raised in vehement assertion and Waymart’s lower rumble in protest. As he was groping for the door, he heard Sandy say:
"I tell ye, Mart, wild hosses won’t drag ’im up here s’ long as that young feller is in these mountings, and we may want ’im here."
Then Waymart’s response, "Well, what be ye aimin’ to do about it? Don’t bite off more’n ye can swaller. Ye do that too often. He’ll be out of here in a few weeks. What’s eatin’ ye? ’Let well enough alone.’"
"Yes," scornfully from Sandy. "Ye maverick! They won’t go till we––"
Ross, his hand on the door, had stubbed his toe against a stone.
"Sh," came Sandy’s warning in lowered tones. "What’s that?"
There was a step across the floor. Ross instinctively fell back into the darkness and slipped behind a tree. The door was jerked open and Sandy’s figure appeared. An instant he looked out and then turning back, said disgustedly, "Nobudy, but guess we don’t need t’ yell loud enough t’ be heard up t’ Wilson’s."