Bob's long head nodded emphatically. "Yes, one of the boys had the team out mending fence in the afternoon, and when he was through he turned them into the corral with the broncos. I'm sure they were there."
"I'm not surprised," commented Thompson, swinging on his single elbow to face the others. "It's been some time now since we've had a necktie party and it's bound to come. The wonder is it hasn't come before."
Gilbert and Grover, comparatively elderly men, said nothing, looked nothing; but upon the faces of the half-dozen cowboys there appeared distinct anticipation. The hunt of a "rustler" appealed to them as a circus does to a small boy, as the prospect of a football game does to a college student.
Meanwhile, McFadden had been thinking. One could always tell when this process was taking place with the Scotchman, from his habit of tapping his chest with his middle finger as though beating time to the movement of his mental machinery.
"Got any plan, Kennedy?" he queried. "Whoever's done you has got a good start by this time; but if we're going to do anything, there's no use in giving him longer. How about it?"
Mick's single eye shifted as before, and went from face to face. "No, I haven't; but I've got an idea." A pause. "How many of you boys remembers Tom Blair?" he digressed.
"I do," said Grover.
"Same here." It was Gilbert of the Lost Range who spoke.
"I've heard of him," commented one of the cowboys.