"No. They halted here for some hours. I reckon they had ridden a long way afore they attacked our place. I saw their fires some time afore I got to them, or I might have walked into them, for I didn't think they would have halted so soon. I tied the hoss up and scouted round 'em and when they started this morning before daylight took up the trail after them. They weren't travelling very fast. You see they had got about a hundred head of cattle with them, and I reckon they have three or four days' journey before them. As far as I could make out, from what I seed of them, they don't belong to this part at all. Sartin they was going easy, and didn't reckon on being followed. It ain't often they get chased when they are once in the hills. Waal, boys, I am glad to see you, and I thank ye all. It is what I expected from yer, for I felt sure that when you got the news you would muster up."
"We have brought a fresh horse for you, Steve," Jim Gattling said. "We druv in a herd this afternoon, and they all changed back there, so we are ready to ride at once."
"That's good, Jim! I was wondering over that, and thinking that if yours had come in from the plains they wouldn't be fit for any more travel to-night, for I knew they was a long way out. Where wur you, Broncho?"
"We wur on Little Creek."
"Ah! that's about sixty miles away from our place. Waal, boys, we may as well go on over the divide and down into the valley; there we had best camp. You will have done a hundred miles by then, and will want sleep. Besides, we mustn't knock the hosses up; they have got their work before them, and maybe we shall have to ride on our way back."
"How many of the skunks are there?"
"Over forty."
"We sha'n't have much trouble with that lot," Broncho Harry said.
"Not if we catch them before they git to their village, Broncho. But I doubt whether we shall do that."
"Waal, we will fight them, Steve, if there was four hundred of them!" Harry said. "We have come to get your Rosie and the others back, and we are going to do it, you bet."