“Ard and me found it out by accident,” added Lattin; “you observe how you turn here, just as if you was passing behind a door, before you hit the pass: that door hides it from the sight of anyone out on the prairie.”
The peculiar conformation had been noticed by Herbert, who replied that he could not have noticed it at noonday.
“The queerest thing,” added Lattin, “is that it’s just the same on the other side; if it wasn’t, the pass would have been found from that direction; me and Ard was chasin’ a couple of Kioways one day that had stolen a horse, when they dodged in here and gave us the slip; that’s the way we hit it.”
An expert engineer could not have constructed a finer cut through the ridge—that is, for the present purpose. At no place was it more than a hundred or less than fifty feet in width, and the ground was so level that, had they chosen, their horses might have galloped the whole distance. There was little doubt that the ridge had been broken apart at this point by some terrific convulsion of nature, the opposite sides corresponding so perfectly that they would have dovetailed, could they have been pushed together.
This being the fact, a brief time only elapsed, when the three horsemen, whose sole purpose now was to overtake the party that was making off with Nick Ribsam, rode out upon the open plain beyond.
Here was another brief halt, while the younger Texan held his ear against the earth, the other neither moving nor speaking. He remained in his prone posture so long that it was evident he had detected something. He must have caught a suspicious sound and was trying to locate it.
“It’s right ahead,” he said, as he once more climbed into the saddle, “and not fur off.”
Since the movements were now based on the discovery of the younger cowboy, the elder dropped slightly back and joined Herbert as an intimation that Lattin had become the leader.
The latter kept his pony on a walk, and the youth was close enough to him to observe that he frequently turned his head in different directions, showing that he was looking and listening with the utmost care. All at once he drew rein and the others halted by his side.
“Sh! you hear ‘em,” he whispered.