“Where’ve you got the money for the ponies, Ralph?”
“Right in my inside coat pocket. Why?”
“Oh, I dunno. Better put it in a safer place; you might lose it.”
Ralph could not quite understand the drift of his companion’s remark, but he shifted the money—one hundred dollars in bills—to his belt, which had a money pocket for such purposes. By this time they were up to the long hitching post where the other ponies were tied and they dismounted and secured their own animals.
“Let me do the talking,” warned Mountain Jim as they approached the door. The noise of their arrival had been noticed within, and a short, stocky figure of a man with a flaming red beard blocked the light from the doorway as they approached.
“Great Blue Bells of Scotland, that ain’t Donald Campbell, by a long shot!”
“Maybe he’s moved on,” said Ralph, recollecting the phrasing of the notice in the deserted log cabin.
“Maybe,” responded Jim briefly. The next minute the man in the doorway hailed them.