way he can. It'll take him longer'n it took me. Having the use of your
hands helps quite a lot. And the use of your mouth to cuss a little.
But he'll make it in an hour or two--I'm afraid." He looked at Bud, a
half-shamed tenderness in his eyes. "It sure was hard to leave him like
I did. It was like walking on your toes past a rattler curled up asleep
somewhere, afraid you might spoil his nap. Only Pop wasn't asleep."
He sat up and reached his hand for a cup of coffee which Eddie was
offering. "Anyway, I had the fun of telling the old devil what I
thought about him," he added, and blew away the steam and took another
satisfying nip.

"He'll put them on our trail, I suppose," said Bud, biting into a ragged
piece of bread with a half-burned slice of hot bacon on it.

"When he gets to the ranch he will. His poison fangs was sure loaded
when I left. He said he wanted to cut your heart out for robbing him,
and so forth, ad swearum. We'd best not leave any trail."

"We ain't going to," Eddie assured him eagerly. "I'm glad being with
the Catrockers is going to do some good, Mr. Birnie. It'll help you git
away, and that'll help find Sis. I guess she hit down where you live,
maybe. How far can your horse travel to-day--if he has to?"

Bud looked across to where Sunfish, having rolled in a wet spot near
the spring and muddied himself to his satisfaction, was greedily at work
upon a patch of grass. "If he has to, till he drops in his tracks. And
that won't be for many a mile, kid. He's thoroughbred; a thoroughbred
never knows when to quit."

"Well, there ain't any speedy trail ahead of us today," Eddie vouchsafed
cheeringly. "There's half-a mile maybe where we can gallop, and the rest
is a case of picking your footing."

"Let's begin picking it, then," said Bud, and got up, reaching for his
bridle.

By devious ways it was that Eddie led them out of that sinister country
surrounding the Sinks. In the beginning Bud and Jerry exchanged glances,
and looked at their guns, believing that it would be through Catrock
Canyon they would have to ride. Eddie, riding soberly in the lead, had
yet a certain youthful sense of his importance. "They'll never think of
following yuh this way, unless old Pop Truman gits back in time to tell
'em I'm travelling with yuh," he observed once when they had penetrated
beyond the neighborhood of caves and blow-holes and were riding safely
down a canyon that offered few chances of their being observed