So I scratched up to the top where my pony was waitin'. It was a tur'ble hard climb, and I 'most had to have hooks on my eyebrows to get up at all. It's easier to slide down than to climb back. I dropped my gun out of my holster, and she went way to the bottom, but I wouldn't have gone back for six guns. Larry picked it up for me.
So we went along, me on the rim-rock and around the barrancas, and Larry in the bottom carryin' of the kid.
By and by we came to the ranch house, stopped to wait. The minute Larry hove in sight everybody was out to once, and in two winks the woman had that baby. They didn't see me at all, but I could hear, plain enough, what they said. Larry told how he had found her in the cave, and all about the lion tracks, and the woman cried and held the kid close to her, and thanked him about forty times. Then when she'd wore the edge off a little, she took the kid inside to feed it or somethin'.
"Well," says Larry, still laughin', "I must hit the trail."
"You say you found her up the Double R?" asks Hahn. "Was it that cave near the three cottonwoods?"
"Yes," says Larry.
"Where'd you get into the canyon?"
"Oh, my hoss slipped off into the barranca just above."
"The barranca just above," repeats Hahn, lookin' straight at him.
Larry took one step back.