"NOW, DANG IT, RIDE!"
slid with a click up into the chamber; let the hammer gently down with his thumb and laid the gun across his thighs.
"She's ready for bear," he observed placidly.
"Well, now, you boys show some kinda sense," Applehead told them when Pink had followed Weary's example. "Fellers like Happy and Bud, they shore do show their ign'rance uh this here dang country, when they up 'n' laff at the idee uh trouble—now I'm tellin' yuh!"
From the ridge which was no more than a high claw of the square butte, four Indians in greasy, gray Stetsons with flat crowns nodded with grim satisfaction, and then made haste to point the toes of their moccasins down to where their unkempt ponies stood waiting. They were too far away to see the shifting of rifles to the laps of the riders, or perhaps they would not have felt quite so satisfied with the steady advance of the four who had taken the right-hand fork of the trail. They could not even tell just which four men made up the party. They did not greatly care, so long as the force of the white men was divided. They galloped away upon urgent business of their own,
225
