Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/215

ONE PUT OVER ON THE BUNCH and came on, grinning a little with the corners of his mouth tipped down.

"Here's what's left of the hobbles the buckskin wore," he said, holding up the cut loops of a figure-eight rope hobble. "Kinda speaks for itself, don't it?"

They crowded around to inspect this plain evidence of stealing. Afterwards they stood hard-eyed and with a flush on their cheek-bones, considering what was the best and wisest way to meet this emergency. As to hunting afoot for their horses, the chance of success was almost too small to be considered at all. Pink's horse was not fit for further travel until he had rested. There was one pair of field glasses—and there were nine irate men to whom inaction was intolerable.

"One thing we can do, if we have to," Luck said at last, with the fighting look in his face which moving-picture people had cause to remember. "We can help ourselves to any horses we run across. Applehead, how's the best way to go about it?"

Applehead, thus pushed into leadership, chewed his mustache and eyed the mesa sourly. "Well, 203