“I’ve got no notion of lighting out.”
Bob put up his big blue gun reluctantly. Never before had it been trained on a human being, and it was a wrench to give up the thought of bringing in the enemy as a prisoner. But he saw he could not pull it off. Fendrick had declined to scare, had practically laughed him out of it. The boy had not meant his command as a bluff, but Cass knew him better than he did himself.
They turned toward the Circle C.
“Must have been taking lessons on how to bend a gun. You in training for sheriff, or are you going to take Bucky’s place with the rangers?” Fendrick asked with casual impudence, malicious amusement gleaming from his lazy eyes.
Bob, very red about the ears, took refuge in a sulky silence. He was being guyed, and not by an inch did he propose to compromise the Cullison dignity.
“From the way you go at it, I figure you an old hand at the hold-up game. Wonder if you didn’t pull off the W. & S. raid yourself.”
Bob writhed impotently. At this sort of thing he was no match for the other. Fendrick, now in the best of humors, planted lazily his offhand barbs.
Kate was seated on the porch sewing. She rose in surprise when her cousin and the sheepman appeared. They came with jingling spurs across the plaza toward her. Bob was red as a turkeycock, but Fendrick wore his most devil-may-care insouciance.
“Where’s Uncle Luck, sis? I’ve brought this fellow back with me. Caught him on the mesa,” explained the boy sulkily.
Fendrick bowed rather extravagantly and flashed at the girl a smiling double-row of strong white teeth. “He’s qualifying for a moving-picture show actor, Miss Cullison. I hadn’t the heart to disappoint him when he got that cannon trained on me. So here I am.”