The boys at the sign camps took things easy. In each sign camp were two boys, one of whom rode days, and the other nights, when it was necessary in bad weather to hold the cattle from drifting.
In order to keep in touch with one another the riders started from their camps and met midway between, in order to exchange notes as to the condition of the cattle and other things necessary to the welfare of the whole herd.
There was another reason for this constant interchange of communication between the camps.
Ted had received a warning from the town of Bubbly Creek, a small cattle station, about twenty miles from the Long Tom Ranch, where there was a cattleman's hotel, a few saloons, and an outfitting store, to look out for the Whipple gang, which had its rendezvous in the Sweet Grass Mountains.
Fred Sturgis, in the last letter Ted had received from him, had also mentioned this gang of thieves and desperadoes, whose operations extended from Canada, into which they made extensive raids when the Canadian Mounted Police happened to be out of that part of the country, as far south as the central portion of Montana.
"I have had considerable trouble with the Whipple gang myself," Sturgis wrote, "but as yet I have never seen but one member of the gang to know it. I have had plenty of cattle stolen, and have always attributed the thefts to the Whipples. All I know about the gang is that it was founded by a fellow named Whipple, an outlaw on the scout, who attracted to himself a desperate gang of fugitives from justice who had taken refuge in the Sweet Grass Mountains.
"I have never seen Whipple himself, but from those who claim to know him he is described as an enormous man of prodigious strength, and a perfect brute, who has forced his men into absolute subjection by his acts of brutality toward them.
"With Whipple are a number of bad Indians, who have fled from the various reservations in Montana after having committed all sorts of crimes, from theft to murder. It is said that these are more to be feared than the white men, for they are terribly cruel, and when they get a victim he is tortured with all the horrible rites of the true savage. They know that the moment they are caught that is the end for them, so that they are reckless to the verge of insanity.
"I tell you these things, believing that you already know what ranching in northern Montana means, and with every confidence in Ted Strong's ability to take care of himself, and meet conditions when they appear. All I can say is, go after them if they molest you. I and my boys fought them so successfully that they gave us a wide berth toward the end. But when they learn that new hands have taken hold of the Long Tom they may think that they can start their funny business again.
"Knowing your reputation, and the ability you have shown in the past in wiping out, or at least breaking up and scattering, bands of bad men, I leave the Long Tom in your hands with the hope that when I take it over again in the spring there will be no more Whipple gang, and that the Sweet Grass Mountains will be as safe as one's own dooryard.