“Jim! Jim!” she sobbed. “Take care of me! I am scared!”
“So’m I scared, Miss Taisie,” rejoined Jim Nabours truthfully. “Lord ha’ mercy on me!”
The men of Del Sol slept ill enough, close to the embers of their fire. Cinquo’s saddle blankets, partly dry at least, he gave to their mistress, for whom he had made a bower somewhat apart.
The boy was the first to move in the foggy dawn and to find his horse. He rode down the river bank in the direction of the last tinkling of the lead mare’s bell. He was gone for the best part of an hour before he brought up the remuda. By that time the other men had rebuilt their wastrel fire.
Something seemed on Cinquo’s mind. He approached Nabours, who stood apart, moody and depressed.
“Mr. Jim,” said he, “I met a man down there, and he was riding a blue-crane Fishhook horse.”
The foreman turned to him.
“You are sure?”
“I kin read a brand.”
“Did he say anything to you? What?”