Billy watched him in silence for a moment.  The truth of Bridge’s statement of fact was so apparent that Billy was forced to accept the plan.  A moment later he transferred the bags of loot to Bridge’s pony, swung into the saddle, and took a last backward look at the diminishing figure of the man swinging along in the direction of Cuivaca.

“Say,” he muttered to himself; “but you’re a right one, bo,” and wheeling to the north he clapped his spurs to his new mount and loped easily off into the night.

CHAPTER XI

BARBARA RELEASES A CONSPIRATOR

It was a week later, yet Grayson still was growling about the loss of “that there Brazos pony.”  Grayson, the boss, and the boss’s daughter were sitting upon the veranda of the ranchhouse when the foreman reverted to the subject.

“I knew I didn’t have no business hirin’ a man thet can’t ride,” he said.  “Why thet there Brazos pony never did stumble, an’ if he’d of stumbled he’d a-stood aroun’ a year waitin’ to be caught up agin.  I jest cain’t figger it out no ways how thet there tenderfoot bookkeeper lost him.  He must a-shooed him away with a stick.  An’ saddle an’ bridle an’ all gone too.  Doggone it!”

“I’m the one who should be peeved,” spoke up the girl with a wry smile.  “Brazos was my pony.  He’s the one you picked out for me to ride while I am here; but I am sure poor Mr. Bridge feels as badly about it as anyone, and I know that he couldn’t help it.  We shouldn’t be too hard on him.  We might just as well attempt to hold him responsible for the looting of the bank and the loss of the pay-roll money.”

“Well,” said Grayson, “I give him thet horse ’cause I knew he couldn’t ride, an’ thet was the safest horse in the cavvy.  I wisht I’d given him Santa Anna instid—­I wouldn’t a-minded losin’ him.  There won’t no one ride him anyhow he’s thet ornery.”

“The thing that surprises me most,” remarked the boss, “is that Brazos doesn’t come back.  He was foaled on this range, and he’s never been ridden anywhere else, has he?”

“He was foaled right here on this ranch,” Grayson corrected him, “and he ain’t never been more’n a hundred mile from it.  If he ain’t dead or stolen he’d a-ben back afore the bookkeeper was.  It’s almighty queer.”

“What sort of bookkeeper is Mr. Bridge?” asked the girl.

“Oh, he’s all right I guess,” replied Grayson grudgingly.  “A feller’s got to be some good at something.  He’s probably one of these here paper-collar, cracker-fed college dudes thet don’t know nothin’ else ‘cept writin’ in books.”

The girl rose, smiled, and moved away.

“I like Mr. Bridge, anyhow,” she called back over her shoulder, “for whatever he may not be he is certainly a well-bred gentleman,” which speech did not tend to raise Mr. Bridge in the estimation of the hard-fisted ranch foreman.