"I guess ya don't know the Police," said Bean, rolling a cigarette.
Stamford sat thinking. "Bean," he said suddenly, "I'm going to tell you something. The night we returned from Medicine Hat I got Hobbles out—never mind how—and rode back to where we'd seen Dakota."
He waited in vain for a burst of surprise. Bean merely nodded.
"They were branding or something. They almost caught me."
"Yer dead right there," agreed Bean.
In a flash Stamford understood. "But it couldn't have been you pushed me from Hobbles."
"Huh!" grunted Bean, taking a long draw at his cigarette.
"You were back at the bunk-house. I saw you there an hour or so later, when Dakota came in."
"Uh-huh! An' yu purty near gave the show away—if Dakota's ears was as good as mine.... Also Hobbles couldn't 'a' been out at the branding neither, 'cos she was there in the stable then, too, eh?"
He chuckled, and coughed with the smoke.