“Much travel on the trail?”
“Right smart fer wild country. An’ all goin’ east. We hain’t met an outfit headin’ west. Hev you heerd any talk of a railroad buildin’ out of Omaha?”
Here Larry put a word in.
“Shore. We’ve had soldiers campin’ around aboot all heah.”
“Soldiers!” ejaculated one of the gang.
“Shore, the road’s bein’ built by soldiers.”
The men made no further comment and turned away without any good-bys. Slingerland called out to them to have an eye open for Indians on the war-path.
“Wal, I don’t like the looks of them fellars,” he declared.
Neale likewise took an unfavorable view of the visit, but Larry scouted the idea of there being any danger in a gang like that.
“Shore they’d be afraid of a man,” he declared.