Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/52

42 "Do you think he is crazy, Mr. Ike?" asked the Eastern girl.

"I—I swanny! I couldn't be sure as to that, Miss," stammered the foreman of Silver Ranch. "The boys say he acts plumb locoed."

Locoed' means crazy?" she persisted.

"Why, Miss, clear 'way down south from us, 'long about the Mexican border, thar's a weed grows called loco, and if critters eats it, they say it crazies 'em—for a while, anyway. So, Miss," concluded Ike, stumbling less in his speech now, "if a man or a critter acts batty like, we say he's locoed."

"I understand. But if this man they suspect of setting the fire is crazy he isn't responsible for what he does, is he?"

"Well, Miss, mebbe not. But we can't have no onresponsible feller hangin' around yere scatterin' fire—no, sir!—ma'am, I mean," Ike hastily added, his face flaming up like an Italian sunset again.

"No; I suppose not. But I understand the man stays around that old camp at Tintacker, more than anywhere else?"

"That's so, I reckon," agreed Ike. "The boys don't see him often."

"Can't you make the boys just scare him into keeping off the range, instead of doing him real harm? They seemed very angry about the fire."