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He sweated blood while the Indians squatted before the fire and came to a decision. The council did not last long. When it broke up Houck braced his will to face what he must. It would not be long now. Soon he would know the worst. Two of the braves went up the hill toward the cavvy. The rest came back to their captive. They stood beside him in silence. Houck scowled up at them, still defiant.
There was only the one; but another might be hidden in the trees. Still, there was no herd grazing anywhere in the coulee, and no jingle of cavvy bells came to his ears, though he listened long.
They'll stop at Wallace's and it'll take a day to git the cavvy up and ready. They'll be movin' day after to-morrow 'nless they want to git caught in the snow. Proves she knows right where to go or she wouldn't head in there this time o' year." He gloomed some more. "That girl ain't right. She's one o' these here hypnotis', er a medium, er some kind o' witch.
It were one man thet done it his hoss shod all around 'ceptin' left hind foot. 'Twere too dark to track after I lost him in thu timber, but the whole cavvy is scattered to hell an' gone. Say, Ken, I'm goin' to rue back on that promise; an' I don't see as it's eggsactly fair on the other boys, either.
We might just as well attempt to hold him responsible for the looting of the bank and the loss of the pay-roll money." "Well," said Grayson, "I give him thet horse 'cause I knew he couldn't ride, an' thet was the safest horse in the cavvy. I wisht I'd given him Santa Anna instid I wouldn't a-minded losin' him. There won't no one ride him anyhow he's thet ornery."
No galled back or lame leg could escape his keen eye. No half-tamed outlaw could slip into the cavvy. Every horse chosen was of proved stamina. Any known to be afraid of water remained at the ranch. Every rider would have to swim streams a dozen times and his safety would depend upon his mount.
Before many hours had passed they, too, saddled and rode away, with the wagons and the cavvy following after and they were headed for Great Falls and the fair there to be held; or, more particularly, the rough-riding contest to which they had looked forward eagerly and with much enthusiasm, and which they were now approaching gloomily and in deep humiliation.
There would be hurrying to and fro with much clamor of wood-chopping, tent-raising and all the little man-made noises of camp life and cooking. There would be the added clamor of the cavvy, and later, of tired riders galloping heavily into the coulée, and of many voices upraised in full-toned talk with now and then a burst of laughter.
"If there's anything I hate," Cal remarked irrelevantly to the crowd, "it's to see a girl chewing a tutti-frutti cud or smoking a cigarette!" Pink looked up from under his thick lashes and opened his lips to speak, then thought better of it. The jingling of the cavvy coming in cut short the incipient banter, and Pink turned and watched intently the corralling process.
"Well?" he demanded. The Utes said nothing. They stood there stolid. Their victim read in that voiceless condemnation an awful menace. "Onload it," he jeered. "I'm no squaw. Shoot it at me. Jake Houck ain't scared." Still they waited, the father of Black Arrow with folded arms, a sultry fire burning in his dark eyes. The two men who had gone to the cavvy returned.
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