“Well,” drawled Skeeter, “I reckon we better give three cheers for the sheep. But I’m still a li’l hazy as t’ why yuh tried t’ bump me off, pardner.”
“Self-defense. I thought you was one of the gang that left the warning at my camp yesterday. They ordered me to pack up and get out—my wife and me.”
“Oh!” grunted Skeeter softly. “You’ve got a wife with yuh?”
Kirk nodded, and a deep crease appeared between his eyes as he frowned over his own thoughts. Suddenly he shook his head and looked down toward the sheep.
“It’s time to take them back, I guess,” he remarked. “You might come down to camp with me and have something to eat.”
Skeeter nodded.
“I’ll take yuh up on that, pardner; but I’ll get m’ saddle first.”
It was only a few moments’ work to strip the saddle from the dead horse and to remove the bridle. Skeeter made no more comments about the dead horse. The tall bay had served him well; but Skeeter in his time had ridden many horses, and this was not the first one to perish under him.
Carrying the heavy saddle, he helped Kirk round up the herd of sheep and head them in the direction of the bed-ground. Through a filmy cloud of dust they followed the bleating herd along the side of the cañon, until of their own accord the sheep headed down on to a flat, where Skeeter could see an old tumbledown shack and part of an old pole-corral.