Cole Ralston rose up in a red windy dawn; he cupped his hands to his mouth and called out lustily: “Beds!”
All around, men roused up in the half darkness and took up the word, laughing, as they dressed: “Beds! Beds!”
The call meant that the wagon was to be moved to-day; that each man was to roll bedding and tarp to a hard and tight-roped cylinder, and was then to carry it to a stack by the bed wagon.
The cook bent over pots and pans, an active demon by a wind-blown fire; here already the bobtail ate their private breakfast, that they might depart in haste to relieve the last guard—now slowly moving the herd from the bed ground, half a mile away.
Cole moved over where Johnny Dines was making up his bed roll.
“Needn’t hurry with that bed, Johnny,” he said in an undertone. “You move the wagon to Preisser Lake this mornin’. Besides, you may want to hold something out of your bed. You’re to slip away after dinner and edge over towards Hillsboro. Help Hiram bring his cattle back when he gets ready. Tell him we’ll be round Aleman all this week, so he might better come back through MacCleod’s Pass. I don’t know within fifty mile where the John Cross wagon is.”
Johnny nodded, abandoning his bed making. “Bueno, señor!” He took a pair of leather chaparejos from the bed, regarded them doubtfully and threw them back.
“Guess I won’t take the chaps. Don’t need them much except on the river work, in the mesquite; and they’re so cussed, all-fired hot.”
“Say, John, you won’t need your mount, I reckon. Just take one horse. Lot of our runaway horses in the John Cross pasture. You can ride them—and take your pick for your mount when you come back. That’s all. Road from Upham goes straight west through the mountains. Once you pass the summit you see your own country.”