Norris changed the subject. “You must have burnt the wind getting here. I didn’t expect to see you for some hours.”
“I happened to be down at Yeager’s ranch, and one of the boys got me on the line from Mesa.”
“Picked up any clues yet?” asked the other carelessly, yet always with that hint of a sneer; and innocently Flatray answered, “They seem to be right seldom.”
“Didn’t know but you’d happened on the fellow’s trail.”
“I guess I’m as much at sea as you are,” was the equivocal answer. 103
Lee came over from the stable, still wearing spurs and gauntlets.
“Howdy, Jack!” he nodded, not quite so much at his ease as usual. “Got hyer on the jump, didn’t you?”
“I kept movin’.”
“This shorely beats hell, don’t it?” Lee glanced around, selected a smooth boulder, and fired his discharge of tobacco juice at it true to the inch. “Reminds me of the old days. You boys ain’t old enough to recall them, but stage hold-ups were right numerous then.”
Blandly the deputy looked from one to the other. “I don’t suppose either of you gentlemen happen to have been down and looked over the ground where the hold-up was? The tracks were right cut up before I got there.”