“’Seems like you might ’a’ let a fellow know,” the cowman complained in his high, thin voice.
Black appeared, dragging a plank he had salvaged. He looked at Prowers, and instantly his mind was full of suspicion. He had known the old man thirty years.
“’Lo, Don,” continued Jake with an amiable edge of irony. “Always doing some neighborly good deed, ain’t you? You’ll be a Boy Scout by an’ by if you don’t watch out.”
Black looked at him with level eyes. “Howcome you here so early, Jake?”
“Me! On my way to Wild Horse. Come to that, I’m some surprised to see you, Don.”
“I been workin’ for Mr. Merrick,” the range rider said curtly. “That’s why I’m here. But mostly when you go to Wild Horse you don’t ramble round by the Quarter Circle, Jake. I’m kinda wonderin’ how you happened round this way.”
“Huntin’ for a two-year-old reported strayed over thisaway. Lucky I came. I’ll be able to help.” He turned to Merrick unctuously, his bleached eyes mildly solicitous. “If the’s a thing on earth I can do, why I’m here to go to it.”
The men were carrying one of the rafts to the edge of the water. Merrick gave his whole attention to the business of manning and equipping it.
“This raft heads for the Steeples,” he announced. “Two volunteers wanted to steer it.”
Black stopped chewing tobacco. “How about you ’n’ me, Jake?” he asked quietly.