Opening the door, Joe Kipp stepped out into the night, his hair silvery white in the bright moonlight.
“I wonder,” said Pete Basset, as if musing aloud, “what we can say to make him know we’re for him?”
“Leave it tuh Tad,” whispered Shorty. “He kin do ’er. Hop to it, Taddie. Do it and I’ll give yuh them Chihuahua spurs yuh bin wantin’.”
Tad gave his little partner a withering look, then stepped over to Black Jack’s dead body, looking down into the upturned face. Then he jerked the blanket off the snoring Slim and covered the body of Joe Kipp’s son.
“I wish you would say something to him, Tad,” said Pete earnestly. “I’m afraid I’d make a mess of it.”
“If I gotta, I gotta,” replied Tad grimly. “Shed them spurs, runt.”
Tad met Kipp at the corral. He held out his hand to the old sheriff.
Kipp’s eyes were misty as he gripped it. “That goes fer all of us,” said Tad simply.
XIII
