“A mistake?” repeated June.
“He had a few remarks to make about a young lady Bob knew.”
June said nothing. In the darkness Dud made out only the dusky outline of her profile. He could not tell what she was thinking, had no guess that her blood was racing tumultuously, that a lump was swelling in the soft round throat.
Presently she asked her companion a question as to how Jake Houck came to be with the rangers. Dud understood that the subject was changed.
The soldiers found beds wherever they could. Some rolled up in their blankets near the fires. Others burrowed into haystacks on the meadow. Before daybreak they expected to be on the march again.
The bugle wakened them at dawn, but a good many of the cowpunchers were already up. Big Bill went to one of the haystacks to get feed for his horse. He gathered a great armful of hay and started away with it. A muffled voice inside wailed protest.
“Lemme out, doggone it.”
Bill dropped the hay, and from it emerged a short and slender youth in uniform. He bristled up to the huge puncher.
“What d’you think you’re doing, fellow?”
The cowpuncher sat down on a feed-rack and laughed till he was weak. “Drinks are on me, son,” he gasped at last. “I ’most fed you to my hawss.”