“A whole heap,” Joe said, spitting emphatically. “What do I make of it? Yes, that’s it, a whole heap. Guess that feller you see most of had his face covered. Was that cover a mask?”
“It might have been.”
“A red mask?”
“I couldn’t see the color. It was too dark. Might have been.”
Joe turned and faced his companion, and, hunching his bent knees into his arms, looked squarely into his eyes.
“See here, pard, guess you never heard o’ hoss thieves? They ain’t likely to mean much to you,” he said, with some slight contempt. Then he added, by way of rubbing it in, “You bein’ a ‘tenderfoot.’ Guess you ain’t heard tell of Red Mask an’ his gang, neither?”
“Wrong twice,” observed Tresler, with a quiet smile. “I’ve heard of both horse thieves and Red Mask.”
“You’ve heard tell of hoss thieves an’ Red Mask? Wal, I’m figgerin’ you’ve seen both to-night, anyway; an’ I’ll further tell you this—if you’d got the drop on him this night an’ brought him down, you’d ’a’ done what most every feller fer two hundred miles around has been layin’ to do fer years, an’ you’d ’a’ been the biggest pot in Montana by sundown to-morrow.” He spoke with an accent of triumph, and paused for effect. “Say, ther’ wouldn’t ’a’ been a feller around as wouldn’t ’a’ taken his hat off to you,” he went on, to accentuate the situation. “Say, it was a dandy chance. But ther’, you’re a ‘tenderfoot,’” he added, with a sigh of profound regret.
Tresler was inclined to laugh, but checked himself as he realized the serious side of the matter.