“Not unless she’s twins,” grunts Hashknife, as another mounted figure passes between us and the moon.
“The danged fools!” grunts Hashknife.
“Well who do yuh reckon it is?” asks Windy, but Hashknife don’t reply. He swings his horse and we rides up the hill, angling to try and cut the trail of the two horsemen. It’s plumb dark and going is tough. We has to angle all over that hill to get to the top, and when we get there we ain’t no better off, as far as I can see.
Hashknife swings off his horse and ties it to a scrub-pine. Me and Windy follers suit and then we all slips our Winchesters loose.
“Now that we’re all assembled, Hashknife, yuh might tell us whyfor and which,” states Windy, peering off into that jumble of fantastic-looking rocks.
“I dunno,” admits Hashknife. “I’ve just got a hunch.”
“He’s just got a hunch, Windy,” says I. “Hashknife’s like a lot of other jaspers what ain’t got no brains—he has hunches. What does your pet hunch say to yuh, Mister Hartley?”
“Hook on to your rifle and try to keep your big feet from rollin’ rocks,” grunts Hashknife, and we goes sneaking off across the Devil’s Dooryard in the dark.
“I’d like to know where I’m goin’,” says I. “This here business of packin’ a rifle and hobblin’ over——”
Just then I got my toe caught between two rocks and I sprawled flat on my face. I throwed my rifle about ten feet away and the danged thing went off. We can hear that old .45-70 echo from all points of the compass. There ain’t a word said for a while, and then Windy says: