CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE BOBWHITE'S CALL.
The discovery that Lieutenant Barrows had lent himself to such an enormous crime in the sight of all cowmen as to attempt to poison a herd of cattle, served to keep them all silent as they rode homeward, but around the fire that night their tongues loosened as they discussed it.
They told Hallie Croffut nothing about it, as they wished to save her pain, for as far as any of them knew she was still betrothed to Lieutenant Barrows, who was proving himself an enemy indeed.
"I see how it is, and how easy," said Ted. "They have been following us ever since we have been on the trail, but from a secure distance, generally riding parallel with us, out of sight in coulees, watching us continually."
"But how could they poison our cattle, without our seeing some of them sometimes?" asked Kit.
"Easy enough. Probably there are only two of them, for more would be in the way, and run more risk of being seen."
"But about the poisoning part of it? I don't understand how they could do it."
"That's easy, too. They are probably a day ahead of us all the time, guessing at our probable direction of march. If they guess it wrong, they try it over again, for they are never more than a mile or so away. When they pick out a place where they think we will graze, they scatter the Paris green on the grass for the cattle to lick up. It takes a good-sized dose of the poison to affect so large an animal as a steer, and that is probably why we have not lost more of our stock by that means. They could never get quite enough, that is, the most of them, to kill them. Such as are dead did get enough to make them loco first, and kill them afterward."