He did not think it necessary to tell them he had also heard it the night before.
“I don’t think he knows anything about it,” said the sheriff. “He don’t fit the description of any one of the robbers, and it’s a cinch he ain’t the big geezer that fought the messenger.”
“What kind of a dog was it?” asked Oyster.
“No special breed,” replied the detective. “It was of medium size, yellowish-red, and had one black eye. At least that’s the description which was given to me.”
A few minutes later the three officers rode away, and the cowboys turned their attention to Cowcatcher, the gray outlaw, which was still beside the corral fence. The collision with the other two horses had wrenched its right shoulder, which accounted for its not going any farther.
They took off the saddle and turned it loose. The boys were loud in their praise of Jimmy’s ability as a rider. The marvel of it all was the fact that Jim had stayed with the horse.
“If he knowed anythin’ about ridin’, he’d ’a’ been killed,” Eskimo told Johnny a few minutes later, after Jim had gone into the bunk-house. “He had the luck of a drunk. I’m glad it happened thataway, instead of havin’ to pick him up on a shovel.”
“Sure,” grinned Johnny, and then confidentially. “Eskimo, I don’t sabe that feller. Remember when them fellers were shootin’ at us from the express car? Remember the feller we seen, who comes along the track and gets into the car?”
“Yeah, I remember, Johnny. But I was too drunk to remember much more than that.”
“I wasn’t as sober as a judge myself, Eskimo. But I’ll be danged if it was a big man. Do yuh remember somethin’ about somebody named Geronimo?”