"Yes. We should be safe enough there if all the Red-skins in creation was attacking us. They might starve us out, but they could never climb up. One of the Brothers there ain't no climbing up at all. It stands straight up all round, but the other has got a track up. I have seen cattle on the top."
"Do you know the way up, Steve?"
"Yes. I was with a party that came out from the Canadian looking up cattle that had strayed. We didn't find many of the cattle. The Injuns had got them, you may be sure; but we stopped at the foot of the buttes, and did some hunting for a day or two. Three or four of us climbed up. It ain't a road you would choose to drive a team down, and I should not have thought that cattle would have climbed it if I hadn't been told they did so. Still it is good enough for us."
There was no attempt to gallop at full speed, the horses being kept at a canter, the pace to which they are most accustomed.
"There," Steve said, pointing to the lower country ahead of them, for they had since starting been gradually descending, "there are the Brothers."
"They don't look far away," Hugh, who was riding beside him, remarked.
"I guess they are near fifteen miles, Lightning."
"I should have said five if I had been asked," Hugh said.
"I wish they was only five. I expect before we get half way to them we shall hear the Injuns behind us."
"Yes, Broncho has been telling me what you think of it. Well, there is one thing, if we get to those buttes first we can keep the whole tribe at bay."