“That is a strange answer. How far is it to where he lies just now?”
“Six miles, about.”
“Come, then, I will go to him if you will show me the way,” returned Charlie, preparing to remount. “I have plenty of that which poor Shank stands so much in need of. In fact I have come here for the express purpose of hunting him and you up. Would it not be well, by the way, to ride back to the store for some supplies?”
“No need,” answered Buck Tom, stooping to pick up his revolver. “There’s another store not far from this, to which we can send to-morrow. We can get what we want there.”
“But what have you done with your horse?” asked Charlie; “I heard you start on one.”
“It is not far off. I’ll go fetch it.”
So saying the robber entered the bushes and disappeared. A few minutes later the clattering of hoofs was heard, and in another moment he rode up to the spot where our hero awaited him.
“Follow me,” he said; “the road becomes better half a mile further on.”
During all this time Hunky Ben had stood with his rifle ready, listening with the feelings of a man in a dream. He watched the robber and his victim ride quietly away until they were out of sight. Then he stood up, tilted his cap on one side, and scratched his head in great perplexity.
“Well, now,” he said at length, “this is about the queerest affair I’ve comed across since I was raised. It’s a marcy I was born with a quiet spirit, for another chip off the small end of a moment an’ Buck Tom would have bin with his fathers in their happy, or otherwise, huntin’ grounds! It’s quite clear that them two have bin friends, mayhap pards, in the old country. An’ Buck Tom (that’s Ritson, I think he called him) has bin driven to it by injustice, has he? Ah! Buck, if all the world that suffers injustice was to take to robbery it’s not many respectable folk would be left to rob. Well, well, my comin’ off in such a splittin’ hurry to take care o’ this Britisher is a wild-goose chase arter all! It’s not the first one you’ve bin led into anyhow, an’ it’s time you was lookin’ arter yer own business, Hunky Ben.”