"How many beeves do you suppose there were in that steal?"
"Oh, I reckon fifty er sixty."
"Whew! That's worth going after."
Bud had mounted, and they galloped along the trail, which was broad and deep. It led them through coulees and over hills and down into valleys, and the sun was high and the trail apparently endless.
"Bud, let us stop and eat our lunch. I'm hungry," said Stella.
"All right. I'm a bit peckish myself," was the reply.
They were in a narrow valley which was strewn with great bowlders, and on the sides of the hills grew a great many scrub pines. Through the center of it ran the broad trail.
The lunch was tied to the cantle of Bud's saddle, while Stella carried a canteen of coffee, for she was a great favorite of McCall, the cook, and when she started out for the day he invariably put up the best lunch a cow camp could afford.
Bud, in the meantime, had found a spring on the hillside and had watered the horses, then made a fire of pine boughs over which they heated the coffee and warmed themselves. Then they began their luncheon.
Bud was so busily appeasing his hunger that he did not say much, and did not think it strange that Stella said nothing. They were seated on opposite sides of the fire, and Bud, thinking that perhaps Stella might need something, looked across at her.