“Wal,—!” burst out the profane Brackton.  “Bostil’s boat! . . .  Say, ’ain’t Joel told you yet about thet boat?”

“No, Joel ’ain’t said a word about the boat,” replied Creech.  “What about it?”

“It was cut loose jest before the flood.”

Manifestly Brackton expected this to be staggering to Creech.  But he did not even show surprise.

“There’s a rider here named Slone—­a wild-hoss wrangler,” went on Brackton, “an’ Joel swears this Slone cut the boat loose so’s he’d have a better chance to win the race.  Joel swears he tracked this feller Slone.”

For Slone the moment was fraught with many emotions, but not one of them was fear.  He did not need the sudden force of Holley’s strong hand, pushing him forward.  Slone broke into the group and faced Creech.

“It’s not true.  I never cut that boat loose,” he declared ringingly.

“Who’re you?” queried Creech.

“My name’s Slone.  I rode in here with a wild horse, an’ he won a race.  Then I was blamed for this trick.”

Creech’s steady, gloomy eyes seemed to pierce Slone through.  They were terrible eyes to look into, yet they held no menace for him.  “An’ Joel accused you?”

“So they say.  I fought with him—­struck him for an insult to a girl.”

“Come round hyar, Joel,” called Creech, sternly.  His big, scaly, black hand closed on the boy’s shoulder.  Joel cringed under it.  “Son, you’ve lied.  What for?”

Joel showed abject fear of his father.  “He’s gone on Lucy—­an’ I seen him with her,” muttered the boy.

“An’ you lied to hurt Slone?”

Joel would not reply to this in speech, though that was scarcely needed to show he had lied.  He seemed to have no sense of guilt.  Creech eyed him pityingly and then pushed him back.

“Men, my son has done this rider dirt,” said Creech.  “You-all see thet.  Slone never cut the boat loose. . . .  An’ say, you-all seem to think cuttin’ thet boat loose was the crime. . . .  No!  Thet wasn’t the crime.  The crime was keepin’ the boat out of the water fer days when my hosses could have been crossed.”

Slone stepped back, forgotten, it seemed to him.  Both joy and sorrow swayed him.  He had been exonerated.  But this hard and gloomy Creech—­he knew things.  And Slone thought of Lucy.

“Who did cut thet thar boat loose?” demanded Brackton, incredulously.

Creech gave him a strange glance.  “As I was sayin’, we come on the boat fast at the head of the long stretch.  I seen the cables had been cut.  An’ I seen more’n thet. . . .  Wal, the river was high an’ swift.  But this was a long stretch with good landin’ way below on the other side.  We got the boat in, an’ by rowin’ hard an’ driftin’ we got acrost, leadin’ the hosses.  We had five when we took to the river.  Two went down on the way over.  We climbed out then.  The Piutes went to find some Navajos an’ get hosses.  An’ I headed fer the Ford—­made camp twice.  An’ Joel seen me comin’ out a ways.”