' As a friend you kin shet up,' Applehead retorted pettishly. ' Ef Luck hits fer the Navvy country after them skunks, I calc'late ole Apple-head'll be somers close handy by —'
' Hurry up and swear us in,' Luck interrupted. ' We've got to get to the ranch and back with an outfit, yet tonight, so we can hit the trail as soon as possible. No use for you to take the oath, Andy — what you better do is to stay at the ranch with the women folks.'
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' Aleck will be there, and Pete and Tommy and the cook,' Andy rebelled instantly. His hand went up to take the oath with the others.
There on the corner of the street where the shadows lay under a gently whispering box-elder tree, Hank Miller faced the group that stood with right hands uplifted and swore them as he had sworn — with the oath that made deputy sheriffs of them all. He told them that while he did not believe the thieves had gone to the reservation, and would look for them elsewhere, the idea was worth acting upon — seeing they wanted to do it anyway; and that the sheriff's office stood ready to assist them in any way possible. He wished them luck and hurried away, evidently much relieved to get away and out of an uncomfortable position.
In the next two hours Luck managed to accomplish a good deal, which was one of the reasons why he was manager and director of the Flying U Feature Films. Just for example, he went to a friend who was also something of a detective, and put him on the job of find Annie-Many-Ponies — a bigger task than it looked to Luck, as we have occasion to know. He sent some of the boys back 148
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to the ranch in a machine, and told them just what to bring back with them in the way of rifles, bedding rolls, extra horses and so on. The horses they had ridden into town he had housed in a livery stable. He took the Native Son and a Mexican driver and went over to Atrisco, routed perfectly polite and terribly sleepy individuals out of their beds and learned beyond all question that a red automobile with several men in it had passed through the dusty lanes and had labored up the hill to the desert mesa beyond and that no one had seen it return.
He sent a hundred-and-fifty-word message to Dewitt of the Great Western Company in Los Angeles, explaining with perfect frankness the situation and his determination to get out after the robbers, and made it plain also that he would not expect salary for the time he spent in the chase. He ended by saying tersely, ' My reputation and standing of company here at stake,' and signed his name in a hasty scrawl that made the operator scratch his ear reflectively with his pencil when he had counted the words down to the signature.
After that, Luck gave every ounce of his energy 149
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and every bit of his brain to the outfitting of the expedition.
So well did he accomplish the task that by one o'clock that night a low-voiced company of men rode away from a livery stable in the heart of the town, leading four pack-horses and heading as straight as might be for the bridge. They met no one; they saw scarcely a light in any of the windows that they passed. A chill wind crept up the river so that they buttoned their coats when the hoofbeats of the horses sounded hollow on the bridge. Out through the lane that leads to Atrisco, which slept in the stolid blackness of low adobe houses with flat roofs and tiny windows, they rode at a trot. Dogs barked, ran out to the road and barked again, ran back to the adobe huts and kept on barking. In one field some loose horses, seeing so many of their kind in the lane, galloped up to the fence and stood there snorting. These were still in their colthood, however, and the saddle-horses merely flicked ears in their direction and gave them no more heed.
' I'm glad you're sure of the country, up here on top,' Luck said to Applehead when they had 150
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climbed, by the twisting, sandy trail, to the sand dunes that lay on the edge of the mesa and stretched vaguely away under the stars. To the rim-rock line that separated this first mesa from the higher one beyond, Luck himself knew the sand-hills well. But beyond the broken line of hills off to the northwest he had never gone — and there lay the territory that belongs to the Navajos, who are a tricky tribe and do not love the white people who buy their rugs and blankets and, so claim the Navajos, steal their cattle and their horses as well.
At the rim of lava rock they made a dry camp and lay down in what comfort they could achieve, to doze and wait for daylight so that they could pick up the trail of the red automobile.
CHAPTEK XI
OVER his second cup of coffee the pale eyes of Big Medicine goggled thoughtfully at the forbidding wall of lava rock that stretched before them as far as he could see to left or right. There were places here and there where he believed that a man could climb to the top with the aid of his hands as well as his feet, but for the horses he was extremely skeptical; and as for a certain big red automobile. . . . His eyes swung from the brown rampart and rested grievedly upon the impassive face of Luck, who was just then reaching forward to spear another slice of bacon from the frying pan. ' Kinda looks to me, by cripes, as if we'd come to the end uh the trail,' he observed in his usual full-lunged bellow, as though he had all his life been accustomed to pitching his voice above some Unending clamor. ' Yuh got any idee of how an autywobile dumb that there rim-rock ?' 152
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Old Applehead, squatting on his heels across the little camp-fire, leaned and picked a coal out of the ashes for his pipe and afterwards cocked his eyes toward Big Medicine.
' What yuh calc'late yuh tryin' to do ?' he inquired pettishly. ' Start up an argyment uh some kind ? Cause if ye air, lemme tell yuh I got the yer-ache from listenin' to you las' night.'
Big Medicine looked at him as though he was going to spring upon him in deadly combat — but that was only a peculiar facial trick of his. What he did do was to pour that last swallow of hot, black coffee down his throat and then laugh his big haw-haw-haw that could be heard half a mile off.
' Y' oughta kep Applehead to home with the wimmin folks, Luck,' he bawled unabashed. ' Night air's bad fer 'im, and the trail ain't goin' to be smooth goin',— not if we gotta ride our hawses straight up, by cripes! '
' We haven't got to.' Luck balanced his slice of bacon upon the unscorched side of a bannock and glanced indifferently at the rim of rock that was worrying the other. ' I swung down here to make camp off the trail. But it's only a half mile or so 153
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