They'll do it if they git half a show--now I'm tellin' yuh!" Pink did not say anything at all, either in assent or argument; but old Applehead, now that he had established a plausible reason for his sudden impulse, went on arguing the case while he unsaddled his horse.

By the time he turned the animal loose he had thought of two or three other reasons why he should take the boys and start out as soon as possible to round up his cattle.

He was still dilating upon these reasons when Andy Green rode slowly down the slope to the corral.
"Annie-Many-Ponies come back yet ?" he asked of Pink, as he swung down off his horse.

"Annie?
No; ain't seen anything of her.

Shunky's been sitting out there on the hill for the last hour, looking for her." "Fer half a cent," threatened old Applehead, in a bad humor because his arguments had not quite convinced him that he was not meditating a disloyalty, "I'd kill that danged dawg.