"I'll see that you boys get a couple of days off, all right." Bud had ridden up and swung from the saddle, his face a gritty gray mask from riding point in the thick of the dust. "I'll fix it up with Lark this evening. Now's a good time to find out just what all this talk amounts to, and where it started. Of course, we think we know, but by the time you boys put a little gold into circulation, we ought to be dead sure we know. All I ask is that you boys keep your ears open and let me know what you pick up." "Nice bunch of horses, Bud." Lark walked over from the corral and stood among them. "I s'pose you boys are framin' a trip in to the Ford, about to-morra. Better not say anything to Lightfoot about goin'. He's just fool enough to be game for anything that comes up, but he can't ride with you bunch of hellions yet. I'd hate to tell him he can't go, so if you'll leave without hollerin' it all over the ranch it'll suit me just as well. I'll be over to the bunk house after a while; you can draw what money you want then." "Now, ain't that hell?" cried Tony after an eloquent pause. "Here we been gittin' ready to appoint a committee to approach the throne--aw, shucks. Lark, yo're a good boss, in some ways, but you'd keep men on the payroll longer if you was kind to 'em!" Since no man ever left the Meadowlark of his own free will, even the weariest puncher laughed at that, Lark with the others; but his eyes held a shadow as he walked toward the house with Bud. "What do you think of my two blacks? Aren't they peaches?" For the first time Bud's tone betrayed the fact that the black bronchos were not absorbing his full thought, but were being used to make conversation. Lark grunted. They walked farther before he spoke. "Horses are all right, I guess. Say, Bud, did you meet a feller ridin' a chunky little bay with the Acorn brand on its hip? He rode in here yesterday and stopped all night. Snoopy kinda cuss. Claimed to be a stock buyer, but he didn't show me no credentials, nor talk like he wanted to buy anything in p'ticular. Ast questions of everybody but me, seems like--mostly things that wasn't none of his business. He left right after dinner and said he was ridin' over Landusky way and would mebbe meet you boys somewheres on the trail. He didn't, hunh?" "Never saw him at all, Lark. I don't see how we could have missed him, either, if he kept to the trail. How did you grade him, Lark? A detective?" "Had the earmarks, son. Sicked onto us by some of them damn' granny-gossips in town, I take it. You goin' in with the boys to-morra?"