company as far as horse society went. The homesteader eyed him with curious suspicion when Tom put off his questions concerning his mission abroad so early in the day and so close on the heels of the thieves. He appeared to suspect for a while that Simpson was one of the gang who had been left behind through some evil dallying of his own, and was now riding hard to overtake his fellows of the road.
But he revised his opinion after looking Tom over narrowly, from spurs to sombrero. He saw that he sat his saddle with an air of authority and the light of honest confidence in his eyes. The night dampness had made the brim of the old sombrero stiff; Tom had pressed it back from his forehead, which shape it held, and would hold until sun and wind dried it to its usual floppy state. It gave him a headlong, hard-riding, shoot-up-and-go look that moved the homesteader's admiration.
"By heavens! you're goin' after 'em!" he said. "That's where you're a goin'—you're a goin' after 'em! Yes, and by heavens! if I had a good horse and a gun and a saddle, I'd go with you. I'm an old soldier—I'd go with you. I was with Grant at Appomattox. By heavens! I were there!"
"I don't doubt it," Tom said.
"I'll give you an old soldier's blessin' if you bring them two horses back."
Tom assured the vehement veteran that such a reward was to be valued above money, and he would do his best. He rode on, his contempt of Wade Harrison's horsethieves considerably increased by this news running out to him as he followed their trail, broad as if a troop of cavalry had passed that way.
