[CHAPTER X—“THERE’S MONEY IN IT”]
A brisk wind sprang up ere we were well clear of the Montell camp. In half an hour it was blowing a gale. Overhead the clouds ripped apart in the lash of the wind, and a belated moon peered tentatively through the torn places. It lighted the way, so that we could see sudden dips in the prairie, buffalo-wallows and such abrupt depressions, before we reached them. With the lifting of the solid black that had walled us in Barreau set a faster pace.
“It will soon be day,” he broke a long silence, “and though I am loth to overtax our mounts, we must reach the Blood Flats. If we are being followed, they will scarcely think to look for us there. And I know of no other place in this bald country where our picketed horses would not stand out like the nose on a man’s face. How it blows!”
It did. So that speech was next to impossible, even had we been inclined to talk. The wind struck us quartering and muffled a shout to inconsequent syllables. But beyond those few words Barreau kept mute, leaning forward in his stirrups at a steady lope. We must have covered near twenty miles before the eastern skyline gave a hint of dawn. With that Barreau pulled his horse down to a walk.
“Well,” he said lightly, “we made it easily enough. Now for a bit of a climb. It will be awkward if a bunch of unfriendly Stonies have taken possession of the one spot that will serve us. But that’s hardly thinkable. Are you tired, Bob?”
I was, and freely owned it. He swung sharply aside while I was speaking, and in a few minutes an odd-shaped butte loomed ahead. It upreared out of the flat country like a huge wart. The bald slope of it lay weather-worn, rain-scarred, naked of vegetation, but on its crest tangled patches of cherry brush and sally-willows made a ragged silhouette against the sky. The east blazed like the forefront of a prairie fire when we reached the top. Then it became plain to me why Barreau had sought the place. The scrub growth stood dense as a giant’s beard, but here and there enfolding little meadows of bunchgrass, and winding in and out through these Barreau finally drew up by a rush-fringed pool that proved to be a spring.
“Water, wood, and grass,” said he as his heels struck the earth, “and all securely screened from passers-by. Now we can eat and rest in peace. Let us get a fire built and boil a pot of coffee before it gets so light that the smoke will betray us.”
The horses we picketed in one of the little glades. Shut in by the brush, they could graze unseen. Then we cooked and ate breakfast, hurrying to blot out the fire, for dawn came winging swiftly across the plains.
“Come over and take a look from the brow of the hill,” Barreau proposed, when we were done.
Wearily I followed him. I could have stretched myself in the soft grass and slept with a will; every bone and muscle in my body protested against further movement, and I was sluggish with a full stomach. But Barreau showed no sign of fatigue, and a measure of pride in my powers of endurance kept me from open complaint.