"We don't want to advertise we're here. I'm some particular about my health. I'd hate to get dry-gulched[7] on this job," said Jack.
"Would the Dinsmores shoot us if they found us?" asked Ridley, searching with his head for the softest spot in his saddle for a pillow.
"Would a calf milk its mother? They're sore as a toad at me, an' I expect that goes for any other Ranger too. Homer might give us an even break because we stayed with him on the island, but I'd hate to bet my head on that."
"If we get any evidence against them they can't afford to let us go," agreed Arthur.
"An' if they jump us up, how're they goin' to know how much we've seen? There's one safe way, an' they would ce'tainly take it."
"Dead men tell no tales, it's said."
"Some of 'em do an' some don't. I never met up with a proverb yet that wasn't 'way off about half the time. For instance, that one you quoted. Rutherford Wadley's body told me considerable. It said that he'd been killed on the bluff above an' flung down; that he'd been shot by a rifle in the hands of a man standin' about a hundred an' fifty yards away; that he'd been taken by surprise an' probably robbed."
"It wouldn't have told me all that."
"Not till you learn to read sign closer than you do. An outdoor education is like a school-book one. You can't learn it in a day or a week or a year."
"You're no Methuselah. There's still hope for me."
"Lots o' hope. It's mostly keepin' yore eyes open an' yore brain workin'. I'm still only in the A B C class, but a fellow learns somethin' every day if he's that kind."
"If it's a matter of brains, why do Indians make the best trailers? You wouldn't say their brains are as good as a white man's, would you?"
"No; an' I'd say there's nothin' on earth an Indian can do as well as a white man, given the same chance to learn it. Indians know the outdoors because they have to know it to live. The desert's no prodigal mother. Her sons have to rustle right smart to keep their tummies satisfied. If the 'Paches and the Kiowas didn't know how to cut sign an' read it, how to hunt an' fish an' follow a trail, they'd all be in their happy huntin' grounds long ago. They're what old Nature has made 'em. But I'll tell you this. When a white man gives his mind to it he understands the life of the plains better than any Indian does. His brains are better, an' he goes back an' looks for causes. The best trailers in the world are whites, not redskins."