"Looky here, Mr. Delkin. You be careful what you say! It ain't safe to make charges you ain't prepared to prove. I'm just remindin' you now that there's a law that takes care of malicious slander. I can't answer fer Bat an' Ed, but I want you to understand the bank owes me over seven thousand dollars that I had on deposit--and that was stole--so you claim. You been hand-in-glove with the Meddalark right along, and I'm the loser by it. Ef I was you folks, I wouldn't shoot off my mouth too much about that bank robbery." Delkin and Bradley withdrew to talk it over, and it was then they discovered that Bud and Gelle were missing. With Tony and Jack Rosen on guard at the house, they hurried down to the pasture and found Gelle reclining in the grass with his hat over his eyes to shield them from the slanting rays of the sun, and Mark Hanley sitting cross-legged beside him, killing time by carefully whittling a stick to a sharp point and cutting the point off so that he could sharpen another; an endless occupation so long as the stick lasts. "Bud? Him an' Bob, they went home quite a while ago. Us boys can't all of us be away more 'n a few hours at a stretch, an' Lark had give them first four a coupla days off. I jest come awn in with Bud fer the day, but now I'm kinda laid out so I can't ride, and Bob, he went home in my place." Gelle vouchsafed a glance apiece to Delkin and Bradley before he let the hat drop down again over his face. They could not know, of course, that beneath the hat his lips were twitching with ironic laughter. "Yeah, they been gone half an hour, mebbe more," Mark contributed idly. "How long do we have to set here an' keep them unlovely dead from feelin' lonesome?" Without answering, Delkin turned and walked back to the house, Bradley following close. "What do you think about it, Jim?" Bradley asked, when two thirds of the distance had been covered. "Brad, it doesn't matter what we think or don't think," Delkin told him irritably. "We'll do well to keep it to ourselves, no matter what it is. We won't mention Palmer's money to the sheriff, Brad. The Meadowlark boys have done a lot for the bank--we mustn't overlook that. I suppose they felt they had a right to collect their own damages from Palmer for starting all that talk about them." "They?" "Bud and Jelly; one or both. I wouldn't think Bud would have had time to do it, or the inclination. But you can't tell what's going on in a man's mind. Jelly, of course, had the chance and he's the one that suggested taking it. No, sir, we've got to keep our mouths shut for the present, anyway." "Let it look like them two down there--Bat and Ed White--got away with it," Bradley suggested, all in favor of protecting customers as good as the Meadowlark outfit. "We've got Palmer dead to rights, anyway, and we've got the bank property back. I guess we can afford to let Palmer hunt his own money, eh?"