"Darn you, Applehead, why didn't you keep out of this mess?" Luck demanded
with his mouth drawn down viciously at the corners and his eyes warm with
affection and gratitude. "What possessed your fool heart to ride into this
trap?"
"We-ell, dang it, we had t' ride som'ers, didn't we?" Applehead, safe behind a
bowlder, pulled off his greasy, gray Stetson and polished his bald head
disconcertedly. "Had a bunch uh Navvies hangin' t' our heels like
tumbleweed--'n' we been doin' some RIDIN', now, I'm a tellin' ye! 'F Lite,
here, hadn't kep' droppin' one now an' then fur the rest t' devour, I
calc'late we'd bin et up, a mile er two back!"
Lite looked up from shoving more cartridges into his rifle-magazine. "If we
hadn't had a real, simon-pure go-getter to boss the job," he drawled, "I
reckon all the shooting I did wouldn't have cut any ice. Ain't that right,
boys?"
Pink, resting his rifle in a niche of the boulder and moving it here and there
trying to fix his sights on a certain green sweater back in the woods that he
had glimpsed a minute before, nodded assent. "You're durn tootin' it's right!"
he testified.
Weary looked shining-eyed at Applehead's purple face.
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