"You've grit, Ike, an' guess I'm with you at any game like that."
Buck waited for the others. He had no wish to persuade them to any definite course. He had come there with definite instructions from the Padre, and in his own time he would carry them out.
A youngster, who had hitherto taken no part in the talk, suddenly lifted a pair of heavy eyes from the torn pages of a five-cent novel.
"Wal!" he cried abruptly. "Wot's the use o' gassin'? Let's light right out. That's how we sed 'fore you come along, Buck." He paused, and a sly grin slowly spread over his features. Then, lowering his voice to a persuasive note, he went on, "Here, fellers, mebbe ther' ain't more'n cents among us. Wal, I'd sure say we best pool 'em, an' I'll set right out over to Bay Creek an' git whisky. I'll make it in four hours. Then we'll hev jest one hell of a time to-night, an' up stakes in the morning, fer--fer any old place out o' here. How's that?"
"Guess our few cents don't matter, anyways," agreed Curly, his dull eyes brightening. "I'd say the Kid's right. I ain't lapped a sup o' rye in months."
"It ain't bad fer Soapy," agreed Beasley. "Wot say, boys?"
He glanced round for approval and found it in every eye except Slaney's. The bereaved father seemed utterly indifferent to anything except his own thoughts, which were of the little waxen face he had watched grow paler and paler in his arms only yesterday morning, until he had laid the poor little dead body in his weeping woman's lap.
Buck felt the time had come for him to interpose. He turned on Beasley with unmistakable coldness.
"Guess the Padre got the rest of his farm money yesterday--when the woman came along," he said. "An' the vittles he ordered are on the trail. I'd say you don't need to light out--yet."
Beasley laughed offensively.
"Still on the charity racket?" he sneered.
Buck's eyes lit with sudden anger.
"You don't need to touch the vittles," he cried. "You haven't any woman, and no kiddies. Guess there's nothing to keep you from getting right out."
He eyed the man steadily, and then turned slowly to the others.
"Here, boys, the Padre says the food and canned truck'll be along to-morrow morning. And you can divide it between you accordin' to your needs. If you want to get out it'll help you on the road. And he'll hand each man a fifty-dollar bill, which'll make things easier. If you want to stop around, and give the hill another chance, why the fifty each will make a grub stake."