"We wasn't meanin' nothin' agin Phil." "Well, what's the matter with Patches ?" demanded the Cross-Triangle man, whose heart was sorely troubled by the mystery of his foreman's mood.
"Ain't nobody _said_ as there was anything the matter.

Fact is, don't nobody _know_ that there is." And for some reason Curly had no answer.
"Don't it jest naturally beat thunder the way he's cottoned up to that yellow dog of a Yavapai Joe ?" mused another, encouraged by Curly's silence.

"Three or four of the boys told how they'd seen 'em together off an' on, but I didn't think nothin' of it until I seen 'em myself when we was workin' over at Tailholt.

It was one evenin' after supper.

I went down to the corral to fix up that Pedro horse's back, when I heard voices kind o' low like.