“But if we don’t see the rascals, how can we keep after ’em?” persisted Bob.
“Oh! well, we might get a general idea of how they were heading all the time, and keep pushing on, in hopes we would overtake ’em sooner or later. The chances would be slim, of course; but anything is better than lying idle. But wait till Mr. Riley makes up his mind.”
As they rode on, the sun vanished from view. Night would come upon them more quickly than usual on account of those gathering clouds.
“We seem to keep gaining all the time, Frank,” remarked Bob, after another fifteen minutes had passed.
“That’s a fact,” replied his chum; “and it makes me feel bad because I don’t happen to be an up-to-date Joshua, so I could hold the sun still for an hour more, up in the Western sky. Given that much time, and we’d overhaul ’em, dead sure.”
“I reckon we would,” declared Bob, “because even a greenhorn like myself can see how one of those horses has a little limp; and the other is forced to hold back to keep him company. Well, it’s been a lively chase, anyway, even if we don’t overtake the fellows. We’re given ’em a bad scare, and that’s one consolation.”
They kept pushing on steadily over the plains as the minutes crept past.
“It’s a great pity our horses were stale after an all day ride, when this thing started out,” remarked Bob.
“That’s what I was saying to myself a little bit ago,” Frank replied.
“If it had been morning, now,” the Kentucky boy sighed, “with Buckskin and Domino fresh, wouldn’t we just eat up the ground, though, and climb after those fellows? Why, we’d leave that big bay of Mr. Riley’s out of sight.”