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After an hour he came to Dumpling Pond, then set out for his home, straight through the woods, till he reached the Catrock line, and following that came to the farm and ramshackle house of Micky Kittering. He had been told that the man at this farm had a fresh deer hide for sale, and hoping to secure it, Quonab walked up toward the house. Micky was coming from the barn when he saw the Indian.
"How about the side-hill trail, through Catrock Peak?" Eddie turned sharply. In the starlight Bud was watching him, wondering what he was thinking. "How'd you get next to any side-hill trail?" Eddie asked after a minute. "You been over it?" "I surely have. And I expect to go again, to-nigh! A young fellow about your size is going to act a pilot, and get me to Little Lost as quick as possible.
He gave you a check; and everyone who was there knew he would hurry up to Crater and stop payment on it, if he could do it and keep out of your sight. Those cronies of his would do the same so they paid with checks. "And the Catrock gang knew that.
It's so darn crazy to go down Catrock Canyon maybe they won't think we'd tackle it. And if they catch us, I'll say I led yuh in and then say, I'm kinda bettin' on your luck. The way you cleaned up on them horses, maybe luck'll stay with you. And I'll help all I can, honest." "Fine." Bud reached over and closed his fingers around Eddie's thin, boyish arm.
"But what I'd rather do," she said, speaking from her thoughts which had evidently carried forward in the silence, "is explore Catrock Canyon." "Well, why not, if we have time?" Bud rode up alongside her. "Is it far?" Honey looked at him searchingly. "You must be stranger to these parts," she said disbelievingly. "Do you think you can make me swallow that?"
She looked ahead at the forbidding, craggy hills toward which she had glanced when she spoke of Catrock. "Why, I don't know. How should I?" Bud saw that he had spoken unwisely. "I was thinking he'd maybe hate to miss another running match like to-day," he explained guilelessly. "Everybody and his dog seemed to be there to-day, and everybody had money up.
With his thoughts clinging to Marian, to the harshness which life had shown her who was all goodness and sweetness and courage, Bud forgot to keep careful watch behind him, or to look for the place where the hill trail joined the road, as it probably did some distance from Crater. It would be a blind trail, of course since only the Catrock gang and Marian knew of it.
Houses so close together could only mean that he was approaching Crater. Bud began to pull Sunfish down to a more conventional pace. He did not particularly want to see heads thrust from windows, and questions shouted to him. The Catrock gang might have friends up this way. It would be strange, Bud thought, if they hadn't. He loped along the road grown broader now and smoother.
But it went Lew gambled and drank and so he took me to Little Lost. I've been there for two years." The words of pity and more that crowded forward for utterance, Bud knew he must not speak. So he said nothing at all. "Lew has always held Eddie over my head," she went on pouring out her troubles to him. "There's a gang, called the Catrock Gang, and Lew is one of them.
"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.
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