Chet carried in an inside pocket of his woollen outing shirt the deeds in duplicate which he was to get Mr. John Morrisy to sign. The old prospector who had never sold his interest in the Crayton claim was a queer, illiterate character, well known about Grub Stake.
Mr. Havens had instructed Chet just how to proceed with the business in hand, and the boy was quite sure he could do it all without a hitch. The money to be passed in exchange for Mr. Morrisy’s signature was already on deposit with the Wells Fargo Company in Grub Stake; and of course Chet had no expectation of losing the deeds.
The horses were in fine fettle, and so were the boys, when they rode out of Silver Run. Each of the chums carried a heavy rifle slung over his shoulder and under his arm, the muzzle pointing down his bootleg. And you may be sure they were not loaded so that the hammer rested on a cartridge. The boys had long before been instructed as to the danger of that piece of carelessness.
They were well supplied with loaded shells, for the day of the muzzle-loading rifles, with the cumbersome shot-pouch and powder-horn was long past. Their revolvers were loaded, too, and each boy wore a keen hunting-knife in a sheath.
They expected to kill most of the meat they ate on the trail. Canned beans did not greatly appeal to the trail boys; especially when they were sure there must be plenty of small game along the way.
They aimed to take a trail which wound through the hills to the west of the town and would lead then by mid-afternoon to the open plains. In going this way they passed through the poor suburb known as Hardpan. It was here the family of Lame John, the Cheyenne Indian, lived.
On one side of a littered lane were grouped a dozen lean cabins, with barren yards divided from one another by pickets, eked out with hogshead hoops, gate-bars of old wagons, hoopskirts, and like rubbish. Here and there an attempt had been made by some of the Hardpan women or girls to make flowers grow; but they were sorry gardens.
Across the lane the ground was open—part of it a dump for the refuse of the neighborhood. As Chet and Dig rode into the head of the driveway they heard a shrill chorus of cheers, intermixed with which was the “E-i! e-i! e-i!” of the Indian yell and the “Yee-ee-yip!” favoured by the cowpunchers of the ranges.
“Something doing, boy!” cried Dig to his chum, at once interested.
“Must be that attack on Silver Run by the Comanches you were telling your Cousin Tom about,” said Chet, chuckling.