"Go on, laugh, Kid! You spent enough time sneakin' up on a whole lot of nothin', didn't ye?"
"What do you think about this, Mr. Hawkins?" Bud asked of the deputy, who was looking around quietly.
"Not much, youngster, not much! Seems mighty funny to me. Doesn't hardly appear likely that a man could get away in this flat country without us seeing him. But that's what happened all right. Never knew a cowpuncher to have that much sneakin' ability in him."
"Maybe it wasn't a cowboy," Nort suggested. "Maybe it was a—Chink."
"Never knew a Chink to use a forty-four in my life," the Kid declared. "These here shells come from a gun big enough to knock a Chinee clean off his slippers. Nope, this here job was done by a puncher—or—" and he stopped a moment—"or a Greaser."
"A Mexican!" cried Bud. "Say, Dick, remember the conversation we heard in Dad's new bunk house? Maybe it was the same Mex that did the shooting!"
"What's this all about, boys?" asked Joe Hawkins. "Anything I ought to know?"
"It might help you," offered Dick. "It was two nights ago." And he told of hearing the voices in the shack.
"Well, I don't know. I don't mind telling you that the crowd we're after for the smugglin' is Mexican—at least we're pretty sure they are. Think you'd recognize the voices if you heard them again?"
"Certain sure I could tell that Greaser's tones in a million," Dick declared. "I'll never forget him."