After they had left the danger zone behind, McAllister told Allen of what had taken place in town that afternoon. The little outlaw listened in silence. "Yuh say this here ol' Miser gent didn't scare none when Spur talked of puttin' the twins on him?" he asked, when the older man had finished his tale. "Not any--but he sure colored aplenty when Dot looked scornful at him," the other replied. Allen made no further remark. "A gent like him don't usually have nerve, but Spur didn't scare him worth a cent," McAllister said, after a time. "That ain't no sign he's got nerve," Allen said carelessly. Again they rode in silence. "Drat him," McAllister grumbled to himself, "I ain't the kind of gent what loves to hear my own voice, but that darn little half pint never talks a-tall unless he's pryin' somethin' loose from the back of your head that yuh forgot yourself." After they had covered some fifteen miles across the broken flats, McAllister suddenly realized that it was Allen who was doing the guiding. In that black night it would have been necessary for him to stop occasionally and peer about for some landmarks, but Allen made his way across arroyos, through clumps of brush, with the sure instinct of a homing animal. "Reckon they're here somewheres," Allen said as their horses' hoofs rang on the stones of a dry wash. McAllister grunted, then he jumped and swore, for directly beside him a wolf mourned his lonely cry. Once, twice, three times it rang out in the night. "Darn yuh, Jim, no wonder they calls yuh the Wolf, if yuh bark like that. Darn me, I sure thinks a big lobo is gettin' ready to jump me," McAllister complained. He saw Allen's teeth flash in the darkness. Then ahead of them there came an answer. "Gosh, yuh got a real wolf answerin' yuh!" "Yuh didn't tell me Jack was with Toothpick," Allen cried. A short time before, McAllister had complained at the matter-of-fact way Allen had taken what he thought was exciting news, but now Allen's voice quivered like that of a man who has just been reprieved from the scaffold. "Hell, Honeyboy--get along there some--don't yuh know your ol' boss?" In response, the scrawny gray hurled itself up the wash. McAllister urged his horse up after the gray, but was rapidly outdistanced, for Honeyboy sped up the wash, with its treacherous footing, as rapidly as most horses could have run over a smooth plain in the daylight.