"Stranger?" he repeated inquiringly. "I haven't noticed one. Where?"
Silk returned the boy's glance with a curious lift of the eyebrows.
"Why, I supposed it was your spotting him that prompted your remark about eyesight," he said lightly. And he pointed towards a clump of bushes some little distance in advance of them across the fresh green prairie grass. "He's sitting hunched up alongside of that patch of cactus scrub in front of us, with his head in his hands, as if he had something tremendously serious to think about. Ah, he's moving now. He hears us. What's he mooching around here for, I wonder?"
"You appear to know him?" said Percy.
Sergeant Silk nodded.
"I know him, yes. It's a chap named Charlie Fortescue."
Percy saw the stranger plainly now, a slightly built, rather good-looking young fellow, dressed as an ordinary plainsman, standing upright and looking expectantly towards the two riders who were approaching him. He waited until they came to a halt in front of him.
Sergeant Silk dropped his bridle rein over the horn of his saddle and slowly regarded the man from the toes of his boots to the crown of his wide felt hat.
"Something gone wrong, Charlie?" he casually inquired. "Where's your pony? What are you doing hanging around here, like a destitute tramp?"