"The sooner the quicker," agreed the Captain. "I want the old man to know we're not spendin' our time settin' around a office. He's got no call to crawl my hump when you boys are doin' the best you can. Well, go to it, son. See if you-all can get evidence that will stand up so's we can collect that bunch of hawss-thieves."
Before daybreak the two Rangers were on their way. They drove a pack-horse, their supplies loaded on a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. Jack had been brought up in the Panhandle. He knew this country as a seventh-grade teacher does her geography. Therefore he cut across the desert to the cap-rock, thence to Dry Creek, and so by sunset to Box Cañon. At the mouth of the gulch they slept under the stars. As soon as they had cooked their coffee and bacon Roberts stamped out the fire.
"We don't want to advertise we're here. I'm some particular about my health. I'd hate to get dry-gulched[7] on this job," said Jack.
"Would the Dinsmores shoot us if they found us?" asked Ridley, searching with his head for the softest spot in his saddle for a pillow.
"Would a calf milk its mother? They're sore as a toad at me, an' I expect that goes for any other Ranger too. Homer might give us an even break because we stayed with him on the island, but I'd hate to bet my head on that."
"If we get any evidence against them they can't afford to let us go," agreed Arthur.
"An' if they jump us up, how're they goin' to know how much we've seen? There's one safe way, an' they would ce'tainly take it."
"Dead men tell no tales, it's said."
"Some of 'em do an' some don't. I never met up with a proverb yet that wasn't 'way off about half the time. For instance, that one you quoted. Rutherford Wadley's body told me considerable. It said that he'd been killed on the bluff above an' flung down; that he'd been shot by a rifle in the hands of a man standin' about a hundred an' fifty yards away; that he'd been taken by surprise an' probably robbed."
"It wouldn't have told me all that."