“That will do for you,” said Dick Willoughby with an admonishing look. “Don’t you forget that Guadalupe, although an old Indian squaw, is also a human being. There is going to be no violence if I can prevent it.”
“Well,” laughed Jack, pushing his hat back as if to acknowledge that he had been checkmated, “you’re my boss on the cattle ranch, and I’ll have to take your tip, I guess.”
“I say, Dick,” asked the other cowboy, “did you see anything of the white wolf?”
“Do you mean the real wolf?” interjected Jack Rover, “or the bandit, Don Manuel?”
Willoughby was looking along the road and took no notice.
“I guess both are real,” mused Tom Baker, grimly smiling, and a general laugh followed.
“Well, I for one will subscribe to that,” exclaimed Buck Ashley, storekeeper, postmaster, bartender, and all-round generalissimo of the trading establishment. “If Don Manuel is not a wolf in human form, and a bigger outlaw than Joaquin Murietta ever thought of being, why you may take my head for a football.”
“But he’s dead, ain’t he?” asked the cowboy who had introduced the subject of the white wolf.
“Just one thing that I want to emphasize good and plenty to you fellers,” said Tom Baker, “and that is—”
“Here she comes!” interrupted Dick Willoughby.