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Nort asked the same question, for there lay the narrow trail before them, running along a ledge, with a shelving bank of shale and sand on one side and a towering face of rock on the other. Snake Purdee raced at such speed around the turn, in spite of his own admonition to the boy ranchers, that the cowboy nearly ran down Bud and Nort.
"Plenty of Indian sign, which shows the Yaquis, or some of them at least, passed this way. Here's the trail, and we'll follow it. Do you want to come with us?" he asked of Snake Purdee. "Well, we'd like to, if it isn't asking too much. Our main object is to get within shooting distance of these Yaquis, and save this Rosemary girl and her brother." "Precisely our object," the captain said.
Grinnell had seemed pleased by this homage at the shrine of the family idol; but at the very mention of the "Purdee fambly" his face hardened, an angry light sprang into his eyes, and his gesture in skimming with the perforated gourd the scum from the boiling sorghum was as energetic as if with the action he were dashing the "Purdee fambly" from off the face of the earth.
Del Pinzo and that Hank Fisher bunch are bad enough, but I don't believe they had a hand in this." "I wouldn't put it past them!" stated Yellin' Kid in his usual, loud tones. "Th' skunks!" "But dad said he didn't recognize the fellow he surprised at his safe," spoke Bud. "Of course he didn't have much chance. But if it had been Del Pinzo " "Don't worry!" broke in Snake Purdee.
Rolling Stone gave a sudden jump, and a grunt, the reason for this action being that Snake Purdee had urged his steed to a place next to that of the speaker and had given him a jolting punch in the ribs. "Wha-wha " stuttered Rolling Stone.
It may have been some distortion of the story heard only from the lips of the circuit rider, some fantasy of tradition invested with the urgency of fact, but Roger Purdee could not remember the time when he did not believe that these were the stone tables of the Law that Moses flung down from the mountain-top in his wrath.
She gave her irritation the luxury of withholding the salve to Grinnell's wounded vanity. She said nothing. The tribute to Purdee went for what it was worth, and he was forced to swallow the humble-pie he had taken into his mouth, albeit it stuck in his throat. A shadow seemed to have fallen into the moral atmosphere as the gentle dusk came early on.
On the way Snake Purdee, who rode beside Captain Marshall, told such details as he possessed about the capture of Rosemary and Floyd. The officer had heard pretty much the same story, for it had been wired to distant points on the theory that the Yaquis would scatter, and there was no telling in which direction they would travel.
The baby's dress made a bright bit of color amidst the dreary tones. As Purdee caught sight of it he remembered that this was "Grinnell's old baby," who had been the cause of the renewal of the ancient quarrel, which had resulted so benignantly for him. "I owe you a good turn, sis," he murmured, satirically, glaring at the child as the unconscious mother lifted her to go in the house.
Before Purdee reached home, flakes of snow, the first of the season, were whirling through the gray dusk noiselessly, ceaselessly, always falling, yet never seeming to fall, rather to restlessly pervade the air with a vacillating alienation from all the laws of gravitation.
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