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Buck stood it, keeping his mates up to their work and maintaining discipline, though he, too, was very tired. Billee cried and whimpered regularly in his sleep each night. Joe was sourer than ever, and Sol-leks was unapproachable, blind side or other side. But it was Dave who suffered most of all. Something had gone wrong with him.
But don't get worried, Dad, if you don't hear from us in several days, or a couple of weeks. We'll probably be out of the reach of a telephone." "Yes, I realize that! Well, good luck to you. When you going to start?" "First thing in the morning. Old Billee was shot up a little, so I'll leave him and Buck Tooth to look after what cattle we have left.
"And what for?" Bud wanted to know, "He got out this way!" said Old Billee quietly, as he leaned over the cot and pushed with his hand against the side of the tent. A right-angled opening was disclosed, cut with a sharp knife. The loose point was at the bottom, and once Four Eyes had slipped out, the cut flap hung down in place, not disclosing, in the dim light, that the canvas had been cut.
Something of the excitement that had moved them must have been visible on the faces of the boys when they returned to camp, for Old Billee, greeting them in the absence of the other cowboys, asked: "Did you land 'em, Bud?" "Who; the rustlers? No. Couldn't see where they'd vanished to any more than, as one of the boys said, as if an airship had been used. But we got an idea, Billee."
And then, in her surprise, she almost fell over the railing, for down below on the lawn, with his smiling face looking up into hers, stood, Bill Farnsworth. Patty gave a squeal of delight. "BILL!" she cried, "Little Billee" "Look out, Apple Blossom!" he called back, in his big, cheery voice, "don't fall out of that balcony, and break your blessed neck!
They then gave up all thoughts of pursuing the retreating rustlers and came riding back, winded and excited, but none the worse for their encounter with the rascals. "Did they get you, Billee?" asked Snake, a gleam in his eyes that portended no good to the perpetrators of the deed if he ever caught them. "Only a scratch," said the old cowboy, but rather faintly.
Patty was really glad, for she didn't wish to appear too exclusively with Farnsworth, and yet she was a little disappointed, too, for as the Spirit of the Sea, her place was by Father Neptune. But Captain Sayre made himself very entertaining, and as Jack Pennington was on her other side, she soon forgot all about Little Billee, and gave herself up to the fun of the moment.
"Little Billee is SUCH a nice boy," she said, reflectively, as she closed the box. "Hello, Pattypet," said Mona, appearing at Patty's bedside next morning. "How's your chocolate? Does it suit you?" "Delicious," said Patty, who was luxuriously nestling among her pillows while she ate her breakfast.
"You know dat little Billee of 'Ose Ransom," the fiddler would say to a circle of people at the hotel, where he still went to play for parties; "you know dat small Ransom boy? Well, I 'm tichin' heem play de feedle; an' I tell you, one day he play better dan hees ticher. Ah, dat 's gr-r-reat t'ing, de museek, ain't it? Mek' you laugh, mek' you cry, mek' you dance! Now, you dance.
There came a day when Billee, the good-natured, fell and could not rise. Hal had traded off his revolver, so he took the axe and knocked Billee on the head as he lay in the traces, then cut the carcass out of the harness and dragged it to one side. Buck saw, and his mates saw, and they knew that this thing was very close to them.
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