"
"Wal, if she didn't meet him, where was she? She wasn't in her room."
Bostil gazed at Holley and the other riders, then back to Holley. What was the
matter with this old rider? Bostil had never seen Holley seem so strange. The
whole affair began to loom strangely, darkly. Some portent quickened Bostil's
lumbering pulse. It seemed that Holley's mind must have found an obstacle to
thought. Suddenly the old rider's face changed--the bronze was blotted out--a
grayness came, and then a dead white.
"Bostil, mebbe you 'ain't been told yet thet--thet Creech rode in yesterday. .
. . He lost all his racers! He had to shoot both Peg an' Roan!"
Bostil's thought suffered a sudden, blank halt. Then, with realization, came
the shock for which he had long been prepared.
"A-huh! Is thet so? . . . Wal, an' what did he say?"
Holley laughed a grim, significant laugh that curdled Bostil's blood. "Creech
said a lot! But let thet go now. . . . Come with me."
Holley started with rapid strides down the lane. Bostil followed.
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