d to be an out-and-out lie
to serve. Jack lied competently. "Not a word."

Her little finger tapped the hole in the pane gently while she
reflected. "He told me--"

"That boy's still worryin' about losin' that money for Mr. Wadley, don't
you reckon? He's got it tucked in his mind that a game man never would
have been robbed. So he's decided he must be yellow. Nothin' to it
a-tall. No quitter ever would have stood off those Kiowas like he did."

"That's what I think." She turned to the Ranger again, nodding
agreement. "You've relieved my mind. I shouldn't like to think that--"

She let her sentence trail out to nothing. Jack Roberts guessed its
conclusion. She wouldn't like to think that the man she loved was not
game.

CHAPTER XXIV

TEX BORROWS A BLACKSNAKE

Dinsmore recovered from his wound and was held prisoner by Captain
Ellison for a month after he was well. Then the ranger captain dismissed
the man with a warning.

"Skedaddle, you damn jayhawker," was his cavalier farewell. "But listen.
If ever I get the deadwood on you an' yore outfit, I'll sure put you
through. You know me, Dinsmore. I went through the war. For two years I
took the hides off'n 'em.[5] I'm one of the lads that knocked the bark
off this country. An' I've got the best bunch of man-hunters you ever
did see. I'm not braggin'. I'm tellin' you that my boys will make you
look like a plugged nickel if you don't get shet of yore meanness.
They're a hell-poppin' bunch of jim-dandies, an' don't you ever forget
it."

Homer Dinsmore spat tobacco-juice on the floor by way of expressing his
contempt. "Hell!" he sneered. "We were doin' business in this neck of
the woods before ever you come, an' we'll be here after you've gone."

The Ranger Captain gave a little shrug to his shoulders. "Some folks
ain't got any more sense than that hog rootin' under the pecan tree,
Dinsmore. I've seen this country when you could swap a buffalo-bull hide
for a box of cartridges or a plug o' tobacco. You cayn't do it now, can
you? I had thirty wagons full of bales of hides at old Fort Griffin two
years ago. Now I couldn't fill one with the best of luck. In five years
the buffaloes will be gone absolutely--mebbe in less time. The Indians
are goin' with the buffaloes-an' the bad-men are a-goin' to travel the
same trail. Inside of three years they'll sure be hard to find outside
of jails. But you got to go yore own way. You're hard to curry, an' you
wear 'em low.