"Waal, you know your own business, Lightning. It is a pity, for in another year you would make one of the best hands on the plains."
"If I were to stay for another year I expect I should stay for good, Harry. It is a hard life, a terribly hard life; but it is a grand one for all that. There is nothing like it in the way of excitement, and I don't wonder that men who once take to it find it very difficult to settle down to anything else afterwards. Therefore, you see, it is just as well to stop before one gets too fond of it. I know I shall always look back upon this as the jolliest time of my life, and I am lucky to have gone through it without having been damaged by a cow, or having my neck broken by a broncho, or being shot by an Indian. Royce has made up his mind to go with me, and as soon as we get our discharge we shall make our way to New Mexico, and perhaps down into Arizona; but of course that must depend upon other things."
Upon reaching the station they found that, as Harry had predicted, hands were already being discharged. The manager said, when they went to him and told him that they wished to leave, "Well, I had intended to keep you both on for the winter; but of course if you wish to go, there is an end of it, and there are so many anxious to be kept on that a man in my position feels almost grateful to those who voluntarily afford vacancies."
There were very hearty adieus between Hugh and Royce and Broncho Harry, Long Tom, and the others who had been their close companions for months. Then they mounted and rode off from the station. They had heard from a man who had just arrived that a large waggon-train was on the point of starting from Decatur for Santa Fé. It was composed of several parties who had been waiting until a sufficient force was collected to venture across the Indian country. There were several waggon-trains going with supplies for the troops stationed at the chain of forts along the line. Others had goods for Santa Fé; while a third was freighted with machinery and stores for mining enterprises farther south in New Mexico.
It took Royce and Hugh a week to traverse the country to Decatur, and on arriving there they heard that the teams had started two days before. They waited a day at Decatur to buy a pack-horse and the necessary stores for their journey, and then set out. In two days they overtook the train, which consisted of forty waggons. Learning which man had been selected as the leader of the party they rode up to him.
"We are going to Santa Fé," Royce said. "We are both good shots and hunters, and we propose to travel with you. We are ready to scout and bring in game, if you will supply us with other food."
"That's a bargain," the man said briefly, by no means sorry at the addition of strength to the fighting force. "I reckon you will earn your grub. They say the Injuns air on the war-path."
"They are right enough there," Royce said. "We have been engaged in a fight with a band of the Comanches who made a raid down on a little settlement named Gainsford, killed a score of settlers, and carried off five women. We got together a band from the ranche we were working on and went after them, and we had some pretty tough fighting before we got through."
"Waal, you will just suit us," the man said. "I hear pretty near all the tribes are up, but I doubt whether they will venture to attack a party like this."
"I don't think they will if we keep together and are cautious," Royce said. "You have forty waggons; that, at two men to a waggon, makes eighty."