“What’s the matter, Toma?” Dick cried jovially. “You look as if you’d lost your best friend.”
The guide replied by pointing in the direction of the pack-horses. Dick turned his head quickly. A few feet away, two of the ponies were munching the grass, straining at their picket ropes.
“Where’s the other one?” he asked.
“It go along with Lee and Pierre sometime last night,” Toma answered disconsolately. “Them fellows ’fraid like coyotes. Take supplies along too—nearly half. What you think about that?”
What Dick thought was best expressed in his sudden exclamation:
“The miserable, cowardly thieves! Toma, I’ve a mind to go and fetch ’em back.”
“No catch ’em now,” pointed out the more practical Toma. “I no feel sorry very much they go. But the supplies—I no like that.”
“You’re right! Good riddance!” Dick walked over to the small stream of running water and commenced washing his face and hands. “We’ll make out very well without them.”
“I hate wake Sandy,” said Toma. “Him get so mad mebbe no stop talking.”
Dick laughed, not so very heartily, and went on with his task.