“Yere, an’ they take ’em off again.”
“Well, I guess you know,” the smaller man doubtingly conceded.
“I reckon I do,” drawled the other.
“I ain’t scared o’ nobody gettin’ up here,” said the one who was evidently a pupil and novice at the sort of enterprise they had been engaged in. “But you said about dogs; sheriff’s posse has dogs, yer says.”
“They sure do,” drawled the other, lighting a pipe, “an’ they knows more’n the sheriffs, them hound dogs.”
“Well, yer didn’ cut the scent, did yer? Yer says ’bout cuttin’ scents, but yer didn’ do it, now did yer?”
For a few moments the master disdained to answer, only smoked his pipe as Westy could just make out through the leaves. The familiar odor of tobacco ascended and reached him, diluted in the evening air. It was only an infrequent faint whiff, but it had an odd effect on Westy; it seemed out of keeping with the surroundings.
“I walked the rail,” said the smoker very slowly and deliberately, “till I come ter whar a wolf crossed the tracks. You must have seed me stoop an’ look at a bush, didn’t yer? Or ain’t yer got no eyes?”
“I got eyes all right.”
“Didn’t yer see me kinder studyin’ sumthin’? That was three four gray hairs. Then I left the rail ’n cut up through this way. It’s that thar wolf’s got ter worry, not me ’n you.”