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"Wal, when will you have the hosses fetched over?" he asked, deliberately. "Creech'll want to know." "Just as soon as the boat's mended," replied Bostil. "I'll put Shugrue on the job to-morrow." "Thanks, Bostil. Sure, thet'll be all right. Creech'll be satisfied," said the rider, as if relieved. Then he mounted, and with his companion trotted down the lane.
Bostil was afraid Lucy might divine what he had on his mind. There was no one else he cared for. Holley, that old hawk-eyed rider, might see through him, but Bostil knew Holley would be loyal, whatever he saw. Toward the end of the month, when Somers returned from horse-hunting, Bostil put him and Shugrue to work upon the big flatboat down at the crossing.
His contrasting eyes shot little malignant gleams. He muttered incoherently, and moved back toward the skiff, making violent gestures, and his muttering grew to shouting, though still incoherent. He got in the boat and started to row back over the river. "Sure he's got a screw loose," observed Somers. Shugrue tapped his grizzled head significantly. Bostil made no comment.
Next morning early he rode down to the river. Somers and Shugrue had finished the boat and were waiting. Other men were there, curious and eager. Joel Creech, barefooted and ragged, with hollow eyes and strange actions, paced the sands. The boat was lying bottom up. Bostil examined the new planking and the seams. Then he straightened his form. "Turn her over," he ordered. "Shove her in.
Bostil's boatmen, Shugrue and Somers, stood knee-deep in the quicksand of the bar, and their efforts to keep free-footed were as strenuous as their handling of the sheep. Presently the flock was all crowded on board, the Indians followed, and then the boatmen slid the unwieldy craft off the sand-bar. Then, each manning a clumsy oar, they pulled up-stream.
Lucy Bostil had called twice to her father and he had not answered. He was out at the hitching-rail, with Holley, the rider, and two other men. If he heard Lucy he gave no sign of it. She had on her chaps and did not care to go any farther than the door where she stood. "Somers has gone to Durango an' Shugrue is out huntin' hosses," Lucy heard Bostil say, gruffly.
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