"What do you think?" asked Big-foot as they completed the circuit of the herd.
"I should say we were close to five hundred head short," decided the foreman. "How does it look to you?"
"I reckon you're about right. Suffering cats, but that was a run! Never saw a bunch scatter so in my life."
"Couldn't be helped. The night was so dark you couldn't tell whether you had a hundred or a thousand with you. Did you strike any cross trails while you were coming in!"
"Nary a one—not in the direction I came from. If I'd kept on last night, at the rate I was going, I'd have rounded up in Wyoming some time to-day I reckon. Sorry the Pinto's strayed away. He'll have a time of it finding his way back. Reckon we won't see the kid again this trip," decided Big-foot.
"We've got to," answered the foreman sharply. "We don't move from this bed till he's been picked up, even if it takes all summer."
"You—you don't reckon he's with that other bunch, do you?"
"I shouldn't be surprised. The boy has pluck and I have an idea that if he got in with a lot of cows he'd stick to them till the pony went down under him."
"More'n likely that's what happened. I'll tell you what we had better do——"
"Get all the boys together who are not needed on guard," interrupted Stallings. "Let them circle out to the west and southwest and shoot. Have each man fire a shot every five minutes by the watch as they move out. That will keep them in touch with each other, and will act as a guide to the kid if he happens to be within hearing."