The burden of keeping up a pretense of conversation at breakfast rested upon the host and Jack Cole. Silcott was jumpy with nerves, and Falkner was gloomy. As soon as he was alone with the men on the trail to the round-up camp McCoy brought them to time.
“This won’t do, boys. You’ve got to buck up and act as usual. You look as if you were riding to your own funeral, Hal. You’re just as bad, Larry. Both of you have ‘criminal’ written all over you. Keep yore grins working.”
“What am I to do with this gun?” demanded Falkner abruptly. “I got it last night from the bunk house at the Triangle Dot.”
“Did anybody see you get it?”
“No.”
“We’ll have to bury it. You can’t take it into camp with you.”
With their knives they dug a shallow ditch back of a big rock and in it hid the rifle. The ammunition belt was put beside it.
It was perhaps fortunate that by the time they reached camp the riders had scattered to comb Plum Creek for cattle. Rowan sent his companions out to join the drive, while he waited in camp for a talk with Rogers and Yerby, neither of whom had yet arrived.
About noon the two hill cattlemen rode into the draw. The men met in the presence of the cook. They greeted each other with the careless aplomb of the old-timer:
“ ’Lo, Mac!”