Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/359

Rh He waved his hand. Boyd whirled to find behind him a stolid carvenfaced dark man.

"Chino is quite an Injin," said Bill, cheerfully. "Say, how did you suppose I happened to meet you here, anyway? You must think I'm a good guesser!" He spoke a few words in Spanish and received a reply. "I was just asking him which way you'd come," he volunteered to Boyd. "That hill is a good place to spy from, all right. You had the right idea there. But you're too green at this sort of thing. You were just watching your back track to see if you were followed, and you saw nothing. Good reason: there was nothing there. Chino was away off your flank all the time." He laughed his great guffaw. "Come on; hop in: it's getting on to sunset."

Boyd climbed aboard without another word, and they drove back to the ranch.

There he was greeted politely, as though nothing had happened. He ate supper in almost complete silence, answering direct questions in monosyllables. After supper he sat four-square and smoked his cigar. He made up his mind to force them to make the first move. That was good strategy. Only they did not make it. All sorts of topics were discussed, as though Boyd were not present at all. At nine o'clock Corbell arose.

"Let's hit the hay," he suggested. "We must all be tired."

And before he knew it, Boyd found himself in his bedroom; as much at sea as ever concerning what it was all about.

Nor did he obtain any more satisfaction when, wearying of the waiting game, he took the offensive. Everybody listened to him; and no one said anything in reply. He warned them that he was not a man tamely to submit to outrage, and they would do well to remember that he intended to carry this matter away through: they inclined their ears sympathetically. He lost his temper and told him what he thought of them; they inclined their ears sympathetically. He argued with them as reasonable beings that his time was valuable, that this joke had gone far enough: they inclined their ears sympathetically. He even accused them boldly of conspiracy in regard to the Peyton ranch, and warned them that they were butting their heads against a stone wall;