"Want to turn him loose, do you?"
"I'd swear him first to padlock his mouth. He'd do it, too, if he said so."
"Some risk that, old-timer."
"I got to do it, Dave. Can't throw him down, can I?"
"Don't see as you can. Well, make yore play when you get ready. I'll shove my chips in beside yours. I never yet killed a man except in a fight an' I've got no fancy for beginnin' now."
"Much obliged, Dave."
"How far do you 'low to go? If Pete gets ugly like he sometimes does, he'll be onreasonable."
"I'll manage him. If he does get set there'll be a pair of us. Mebbe I'm just about as stubborn as he is."
"I believe you. Well, I'll be with you at every jump of the road," Overstreet promised.
The discussion renewed itself as soon as the outlaws had hidden themselves in a pocket of the cap-rock. Again they drew apart from their prisoner and talked in excited but reduced voices.
"The Rangers have got no evidence we collected this fellow," argued Gurley. "Say he disappears off'n the earth. Mebbe he died of thirst lost on the plains. Mebbe a buffalo bull killed him. Mebbe--"
"Mebbe he went to heaven in a chariot of fire," drawled Overstreet, to help out the other's imagination.
"The point is, why should we be held responsible? Nobody knows we were within fifty miles of him, doggone it."
"That's where you're wrong. The Rangers know it. They're right on our heels, I tell you," differed Homer Dinsmore.
"We'll get the blame. No manner o' doubt about that," said Overstreet.
"Say we do. They can't prove a thing--not a thing."
"You talk plumb foolish, Steve. Why don't you use yore brains?" answered Homer impatiently. "We can go just so far. If we overstep the limit this country will get too hot for us. There'll be a grand round-up, an' we'd get ours without any judge or jury. The folks of this country are law-abidin', but there's a line we can't cross."
"That's all right," agreed Pete. "But there's somethin' in what Steve says. If this tenderfoot wandered off an' got lost, nobody's goin' to hold us responsible for him."
"He didn't no such thing get lost. Listen. Tex Roberts was with him the day Steve--fell over the box. Tex was with him when we had the rumpus with the Kiowas on the Canadian. Those lads hunt together. Is it likely this Ridley, who don't know sic' 'em, got so far away from the beaten trails alone? Not in a thousand years. There's a bunch of Rangers somewheres near. We got to play our hands close, Pete."