"Oh, I just wanted to know," replied the boy evasively. "I heard some o' the men talkin' about one, so I thought I'd ask you. Must shoot pretty fast, don't they? Long Bill was tellin' about one that fired two thousand shots a second." "That must have been a terror of one!" exclaimed the girl. "But they don't shoot quite as many as that, not even in a minute, but they are bad enough. A few of them would simply perforate an army of men. They're a machine gun," she went on to explain. "Just a lot of barrels fastened in a bunch together and turned by a crank which feeds in the cartridges and fires them, too. They shoot over a thousand shots a minute." "I wish we'd 'a' had one the other night," exclaimed Dave, waking at last to a new interest in life. "And I'd 'a' had hold of the crank!" "Wasn't it bad enough!" remonstrated the girl. "Didn't you do enough damage to satisfy your savage soul for awhile?" "Shorty Smith's got a game leg," returned the boy gleefully, "an' so's old Peter. Long Bill, he's got his hand all done up in a sling, too, an' couldn't go back on the round-up!" "I wonder how Bill done that," mused the other twin with a sweet, indrawn breath. Hope flushed scarlet, which faded instantly, leaving her face its rich, dark olive. "Come on," she cried severely, "if we are to get any birds to-day!" "I know where there's a coyote's den," said the soft-voiced twin. Dave was all attention immediately. "Where?" he exclaimed eagerly. Hope, interested, too, leaned forward resting her arm upon the pommel of the saddle. "Well," said the boy, deliberately, sweetly--too sweetly, thought the girl, who watched him keenly--"I was goin' to keep it to myself, an' get 'em all on the quiet, but it's in a kind of a bad place to get at, so mebbe I can't do it alone. It's 'bout a half mile back there, between here an' home, up on that ridge behind old Peter's shack. There's a hole under the side of the rocks, but it's hard diggin', kind of sandstone, I reckon. I left a pickax an' shovel up there." "Let's go up there now," cried Dave, "an' get the whole bloomin' nest of 'em! We can get the chickens later." "Now, look here," said the other quietly. "The find's mine. If you're in on this here deal, you'll have to work for your share. If you'll do the diggin' you can have half of the bounty on 'em. How's that?" Dave grunted. "Supposin' there ain't any there," he demurred. The soft-voiced twin shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "What'd you suppose _I'd_ be diggin' there for if there wasn't none? There's a whole litter o' pups." "Come on, then!" exclaimed Dave, convinced of his good fortune, for the bounty on coyotes was four dollars for each and every one. Hope looked dubiously at the soft-voiced twin, she thought of the supper at Sydney's camp, then fired with the fun of the thing rode gayly away with the boys.