As he dashed forward he raised the long yell, which was gleefully answered, and soon he was at the camp.
This was where he and Stella had started from the night before.
Turning his eyes back in the direction he had come, Ted could see the smoke rising from the chimney of the ranch house, although the house itself was hidden behind a swell in the surface of the prairie.
Had he only known it, he might have driven the herd right up to the ranch house during the night. As it was, he saw now that he and Stella, with the carriage, had ridden for almost two hours in the night, traveling in a circle, and by the merest chance had stumbled upon the ranch house.
"Hello, fellows!" he shouted as he rode up. "Where are the dogies?"
"Oh, to blazes and gone!" exclaimed big Ben, who was trying to thaw out his boots at the fire.
"Where?" asked Ted anxiously.
"Away off yonder." Ben pointed disconsolately toward the south.
"Are they all right?"
"All right, nothing. They're up to their bellies in snow in a coulee, and won't stir. They're the sickest-looking lot of beef critters you ever saw. We've been working with them ever since daylight, then Bud sent us along to thaw out and get some chuck into us, and hurry back so that the other fellows could get limbered up some. Find the house?"