“Somebody unlocked the oat-bin,” laughed Hashknife softly, “and the bloodhounds are on the trail of a top-buggy.”
“They’re welcome to it,” yawned Sleepy. “Hope I never have to ride that far in one again. I sung all the time to kinda keep things cheerful.”
“My ——!” gasped Hashknife. “The poor girl!”
Spot Easton rode all the way from Gunsight with a blind, unreasoning rage in his heart. It had taken him quite a while to arouse the other stable-man in order to hire a saddle-horse, and then he had gone back to the oat-bin and made Blondy Hagen ride with him.
He did not have the slightest idea which way the horse and buggy had gone, until he rode into Caldwell and found it hitched outside the livery-stable. Hagen was still too drunk and sleepy to care how Easton felt, and listened indifferently while Easton polluted the morning air with profanity.
“’F I stole a horsh ’n buggy, I’d git hung,” stated Blondy knowingly.
“And that’s no —— lie, either!” snapped Easton. “Come on.”
Blondy followed him down to Jake Blue’s office. Easton hammered on the door with the toe of his boot. In a few moments Jake’s tousled head appeared and he demanded to know what in the adjective did anybody mean by waking him up in the middle of the night.
Rapidly, and with many oaths, Easton explained that Hashknife and Sleepy had stolen his horse and buggy at Gunsight.
“Thasso?” Blue shivered slightly. “Got any idea where they went with it?”