At a growled word from behind, the little cavalcade advanced, Larkin mystified, uncertain and fuming with impotent rage. Never in his life had he been so needed as he was at that time by Sims and the herdsmen; never in his life had he so ardently desired liberty and freedom of action.
Why these men had captured him he did not know; what they intended doing with him he had no idea—although his knowledge of plainsmen’s character supplied him with two or three solutions hardly calculated to exhilarate the victim. Where they were taking him was almost as much 65 of a puzzle, for Bud, after the first few turns of his captors, completely lost his sense of direction, except for the general compass of the stars.
No longer the friendly loom of the hogback was on his left. He felt the free wind of the plains on his face, and calculated that they must have returned to the open range.
Who his captors were was another puzzle. If these men had been driving the cattle why did they not continue to drive them instead of turning aside to make prisoner a harmless sheepman? If they were not driving the cattle—
A horrible suspicion crossed Bud’s mind. If these were punchers from the Bar T outfit he was indeed in a bad way, for no one knew better than Larkin (by hearsay) the wild stories told of Beef Bissell’s methods in a cattle war.
The young man told himself calmly that if he got away with a few head of sheep and an entire body he would consider himself fortunate in the extreme.
For seemingly endless ages the leader trotted on ahead—so far, in fact, did he ride that Larkin’s arms and elbow joints were racked with pain from being held so long in an unnatural position. At the end of what was probably three hours, a small fiery glow made itself evident at some distance 66 across the plain, and the sheepman knew by this camp-fire that the goal of his ride was in sight.
A solitary man sat by the fire, rolling and smoking a continuous stream of cigarettes. Dimly seen in the near-by shadows were the long figures of other men rolled in their blankets. Bud knew that not far off the hobbled horses grazed, or had lain down to rest.
“Kick up the boys, Bill,” said the man who held the rope. “Got somethin’ queer to look into this time.”
“Aw, let ’em sleep, chief,” drawled Bill without moving. “Some of ’em ain’t closed their eyes in nigh on three days. What’s the matter?”