"Not more'n I could help," he grinned. "It wasn't any of my business; she offered them at a reasonable price—"
"You set the price."
"The buyer always does, my dear—when he can. Ten dollars was only a starter; I'd have given five times as much. They've been the best horses I've had." He stopped with a sudden inspiration. "Say, come to think of it, they're the very ones we've been losing lately. Looks as if some one else is a good judge of horseflesh."
"I hope they don't touch Doll and Prince. Surely nobody would come right up here to our own stable!"
"Not while Big Jim Torrance and booze don't get mixing company too free. You didn't used to think so much of Doll—but that was before she was broke. You're getting your riding legs pretty quick, I say. We'll sell them before we pull out. They're real prairie horses; they wouldn't be happy down East. Just the same," he murmured, after a long pause, "I'd give a week's pay to know who got them horses. Perhaps the camps out west needed brightening up their horse-power, and they've done it at my expense. If we could have got on the trail of the last lot that nearly went over the rapids—but there's nobody can trail in this camp." He smote his knee with a loud smack. "By hickory! Why didn't I think of the Indian before?"
"Peter Maverick?"
"Sure. The only Indian we got. He did me a good turn to-day on that trestle. Never saw an Indian couldn't follow a trail, if there was whisky or a horse at the end of it . . . and I never saw a likelier one than Mavy. Might be worth my while to get in ahead of the Mounted Police. They had to be told, you know."
"Did you tell them how you got the horses, daddy?"
The big man looked grieved. "Do you think your dad has lost all his senses? But this smashing of things was getting too common, and they'd have found out about the horses and wondered why I hadn't called them in. I don't think they'd favour buying strange horses at ten dollars a head and trying to look innocent about it. It isn't any use arguing with them—but you got common sense. You wouldn't suspect your old dad of receiving stolen property—at ten per; but them Mounted Police will ask for a birth certificate for every blessed one. I haven't time to look into the pedigree of every horse I buy. I'm busy. The Police are so unreasonable when it comes to law."
"That's why," he went on, after a thoughtful silence, "I'd like to steer them off the horse question. There's lots else for them to do. . . . Why didn't I think of Mavy before?"