Part 3 (1/2)
”Give me that gun--I'm goin' after him!”
”You'll have to go without it, Jim.”
Jim blasted him to sulphurous perdition, and split him with forked lightning from his blasphemous tongue.
”He'll come back; he's just runnin' the vinegar out of him,” said one.
”Come back--h.e.l.l!” said Jim.
”If he don't come back, that's his business. A man can go wherever he wants to go on his own horse, I guess.”
That was the observation of Siwash, standing there rather glum and out of tune over Jim's charge that they had rung the Duke in on him to beat him out of his animal.
”It was a put-up job! I'll split that feller like a hog!”
Jim left them with that declaration of his benevolent intention, hurrying to the corral where his horse was, his saddle on the ground by the gate. They watched him saddle, and saw him mount and ride after the Duke, with no comment on his actions at all.
The Duke was out of sight in the scrub timber at the foot of the hills, but his dust still floated like the wake of a swift boat, showing the way he had gone.
”Yes, you will!” said Taterleg.
Meaningless, irrelevant, as that fragmentary e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n seemed, the others understood. They grinned, and twisted wise heads, spat out their tobacco, and went back to dinner.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: Fice--dog.]
CHAPTER III
AN EMPTY SADDLE
The Duke was seen coming back before the meal was over, across the little plain between camp and hills. A quarter of a mile behind him Jim Wilder rode, whether seen or unseen by the man in the lead they did not know.
Jim had fallen behind somewhat by the time the Duke reached camp. The admiration of all hands over this triumph against horseflesh and the devil within it was so great that they got up to welcome the Duke, and shake hands with him as he left the saddle. He was as fresh and nimble, unshaken and serene, as when he mounted old Whetstone more than an hour before.
Whetstone was a conquered beast, beyond any man's doubt. He stood with flaring nostrils, scooping in his breath, not a dry hair on him, not a dash of vinegar in his veins.
”Where's Jim?” the Duke inquired.
”Comin',” Taterleg replied, waving his hand afield.
”What's he doin' out there--where's he been?” the Duke inquired, a puzzled look in his face, searching their sober countenances for his answer.
”He thought you----”
”Let him do his own talkin', kid,” said Siwash, cutting off the cowboy's explanation.
Siwash looked at the Duke shrewdly, his head c.o.c.ked to one side like a robin listening for a worm.