Penny shook her head. "I rode quite a way," she said, "and didn't realize it was so late. Where is Uncle Bryant?" It was when Gimlet replied that Penny felt her first frustration. "He's gone, an' God knows where to, or why." "Gone," echoed the girl. "Didn't he say anything?" "He come here tuh the kitchen, told me tuh pack some vittles in a sack, an' stayed while I done it. He took the sack, tho'wed it intuh the buckboard, which same had two strong hosses all hitched, then fetched Mort outen the house with his neck still bandaged, an' the two druv off." Penny hadn't known Bryant to leave the Basin in years. Yet she knew Gimlet must be telling the truth. "Didn't he say when he was coming back?" she asked. "Not a damn word." Penny had counted on a heart-to-heart talk with her uncle. Now that the talk was out of the question, at least for the time being, she felt a hopelessness that made her aware of how much she had counted on that talk. "How long ago," she said, "did Uncle Bryant leave?" "Jest a little while after the argyment." "Argument? What argument?" "Him an' that cowboy callin' himself Yuma had another set-to." "Yuma?" In her confusion of emotions Penny could do little more than echo what Gimlet said. "I tell yuh, they's been things goin' on, but nothin' I c'n lay a finger on. Bryant an' Yuma talked low fer a time, then both got tuh howlin'. I c'd hear some o' what 'uz said. Yuma was callin' on Bryant tuh see to it that Mort got what he deserved, an' got told tuh go tuh hell." "That's what Uncle Bryant would tell him." "Yuma said he'd done some thinkin' since the last row they had an' he figgered that if Mort wasn't given what a killer sh'd git, it was because Bryant didn't give a damn what went on in the Basin." "Oh, if Yuma could only understand Uncle Bryant!" said Penny. "Uncle Bryant can't be bulldozed into doing anything. One way to make certain he doesn't turn Mort over to the law is to order him to do it." "They had aplenty o' hot words," said Gimlet, shaking his head slowly. "They was a heap o' cussin' on both sides. When I heard what Bryant told about the shootin' of Becky, I was fit tuh be tied, I was so gol-darn mad." "What did he say?" asked Penny eagerly. "Said that Mort told him he never had no intent o' shootin' Becky." Penny's lips compressed. "Mort claimed that he seen a snake, a rattler an' a big one, an' he was shootin' at that same, but his shot went wild an' through the window tuh git his wife." "So," said Penny softly, "that's the story he's going to tell." "He's told it an' Bryant's told it, an' I reckon it'll stand. Hain't no way tuh prove otherwise." "No," responded the girl, her confidence in Uncle Bryant severely threatened, "there's no way to prove otherwise." "I saved some chow fer yuh," Gimlet said in an incidental way, "if yuh want it. I reckon yore hungry." Penelope shook her head. "I'm not hungry, Gimlet."