“Nothing, Cadwolloper—except what is left of the old boy they tucked under that ledge. There ain’t even a perfume any more. We can go by that way and see if they’ve been there.”
With that wordless understanding common among men who have lived long together, they left the trail and ambled slowly across the prairie in the direction of the Rogers Ranch. And they had not traveled more than half a mile when Miguel, looking back very cautiously, smiled.
“Don’t look,” he said, and then added melodramatically: “We are followed! Hist! The pursuers are in sight. Courage, men!”
Pink risked a glance over his shoulder, and glimpsed two bobbing hat crowns just over the brow of Flying U Coulee.
“Now, wouldn’t that jar yuh?” he exclaimed, just as disgustedly as if he had not all along suspected that very thing to happen.
The moving specks stopped, remained stationary for a minute or two, and then went bobbing back again. The four laughed, pressed spurred heels against their horses, and galloped over the ridge and into the lower end of Antelope Coulee. At the bottom they swung sharply to the right, instead of to the left, rode as hurriedly as the uneven ground would permit for a mile or more; crossed the trail to Dry Lake, and kept on up the coulee to its very head.
At one point their quick eyes saw where several horsemen had ridden down into the coulee, dismounted, and climbed through shale rock to the lone Indian grave under a low shelf of sandstone, left there betraying imprints of high-heeled boots, returned again to where their horses had waited, and ridden on. They also rode on, toward One Man Coulee. Before them always lay the trail of shod hoofs, where the soil was not too hard to receive an imprint.
Patsy was standing in the door of the mess house beating his fat knuckles upon a tin pan for the supper call, when Andy Green and Miguel rode leisurely down the grade. The boys were straggling toward the sound, and there was the usual bustle around the washbasins and roller towels, and in the quiet air hung the enticing odor of Patsy’s delectable chicken potpie. The two hurried to the stable, unsaddled with the haste of hungry men, and reached the mess house just as the clatter of feet had subsided and the potpie was making its first round.
Cal looked up from a generous helping. “Hello, where’s the rest of the bunch?” he queried.
“Oh, the girls have got them roped and tied,” Andy responded carelessly. “Mig and I got cold feet, and broke back on them.”