"Put up your horses, boys. Jake, over there forking hay, will feed them after you've pulled your saddles. Supper must be about ready. Oh, Jake!" he called, "take care of these horses, will you?" He turned back to the two who were jerking impatiently at wet latigo straps. "Lark didn't say anything about any lost kid, but you can talk to him about it. How about the town folks turning out? They're closer than we are. We'll go, of course." "The town is out," the short man told him, grunting a little as he heaved his saddle to a dry spot under the shed. "Been out all night. Old man sent us over here because he seen Lark ride past right where the kid was workin' in the field. Looked like he stopped an' talked to the kid, he said, but it was so fur off he couldn't tell." Bud turned and walked ahead of them up the path, and now he glanced over his shoulder at the speaker, a curious light in his eyes. "A kid old enough to work in the field wouldn't get lost, would he?" The thin man shook his head. "That's what looked damn queer to me," he assented. "But it's about the only thing that could of happened--unless he was made away with," he added as an afterthought. "How old a kid is he?" Bud's interest grew a bit keener. "Eight--mebby nine. Too little to get anywhere on foot." Bud considered this, shook his head as if the question was beyond him, and stepped upon the porch. "Oh, Maw! Supper ready? Two extra," he shouted, and turned squarely about to scrape his bootsoles across the edge of the porch. "I'd run away," he said soberly, "if I wasn't more than eight or nine and had to do a man's work. Doesn't sound right to me." Having scraped all the mud from one boot, he began meticulously to scrape the other. The two from Palmer's followed his example and scraped and scraped, in evident fear of offending a careful housewife. "Come right in, boys." Maw herself pulled open the door and stood there, smiling and showing the three yellow teeth like stripes dividing the glaring white ones. "Supper's about ready. What's these gentlemen's names, Buddy?" "You'll have to ask them," Bud replied evenly. "They're in a hurry and upset, and didn't introduce themselves. Bat and Ed, the boys call them. Come on in, boys. They're out hunting a lost child, Maw. They think maybe Lark might have seen him last evening as he was riding out from town." "Johnson's my name," the thin man introduced himself perfunctorily to maw. "This other man is named White. Is Mr. Larkin in?" "Come right into the kitchen. Yes, Lark's here, going over his guns after the rain; leaky roof to the closet--Bud, you'd ought to patch that roof right away to-morrow. It was just an accident Lark went into the closet for something and found all the guns soaking wet. A child lost, did you say?" "Don't seem to worry folks over this way very much," Johnson observed suspiciously. "How d' do, Lark; seen you in Smoky Ford, you remember."