Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/269

 "Give me another horse and turn me loose!" said Wallace.

Wallace was sweating in the pressure of his desire to speed to Drumwell; he began to strip the saddle off his horse as he spoke, and Eudora went tearing to the barn after Frank, never turned out to pasture at night with the other animals, to drive up the horses for Wallace to select his remount.

Waco came out of the barn as she ran up to the door. He was leading his tall lean horse, the one that had carried Simpson on the long ride south trailing the horsethieves. He was carrying the shotgun over his shoulder; his gun was buckled around his lank body, and he was a grim and determined man, ready to ride on a grim and determined business, with a good deal of lead available for delivery.

"Where are you goin', Waco?" Eudora asked, a question that her own eyes had answered the moment she saw him in the door.

"Down the road a piece."

"Wait. That man wants a fresh horse—he'll go with you."

It wasn't much of a job to find the horses, as they always wandered up to the corrals in the morning, where they stood around in the way of horses, putting their necks over the fence, waiting, it seemed, to learn if they were wanted and, if not, to have it off their minds so they could enjoy the day. Eudora had them in the corral in less than fifteen minutes, and her mother, steady as a clock now, had a pot of coffee on the stove, biscuits in the oven