The cowboys were saddling their ponies, and instead of the three men they had expected to discover, Megget and his companions saw a dozen.
"That's the Half-Moon bunch!" declared one of them.
"There are too many of them," asserted another. "We're in a pretty mess now. Those three men we followed have evidently informed them of finding our trail and they are starting to pick it up."
"Don't you worry about that," growled Megget. And before his companions were aware what he intended to do, he uttered the calls that caused the ranch owners and cowboys to start out into the prairie.
Eagerly the raiders watched them disappear and Megget chuckled:
"I thought I could fool 'em. It's easy when you are above any one." And then he added: "You'll wish you had never started after me, Wilder!"
Wondering at their leader's meaning, his fellows had no chance to ask, however, for even as he spoke Megget was descending from the ledge.
Arriving at the camp fire, he glanced about for a few moments, then sent his men for the horses.
As soon as he was sure he was alone, the leader of the raiders walked out on the plains, paused, wet his finger in his mouth, then raised his hand above his head.
"Great! I'm sure playing in luck," he muttered to himself. "The wind is blowing from the west—straight out across the plains." And chuckling grimly, the cattle thief returned to the fire to await the horses.