"We didn't run across the rough-house gang of punchers that hold out over at the Double Z Ranch, nor yet any of the sheep-herders from over near Skidmore Station. We're trying to mind our own business and looking for trouble with no outfit, though of course we don't mean to be stood on."
The night passed in comparative peace, though a pack of coyotes persisted in keeping up an all-night chorus of yelps and long-drawn howls that sounded more wolf than otherwise.
With the morning they were early in the saddle. It was so hot that Mr. Wallace had decided to lay off for several hours toward the middle of the day, making up for lost time by the early start, also a ride after nightfall, when the cooler airs would creep down from the mountains ahead.
They could plainly see these mighty elevations now at any time they chose to cast their eyes up and down the horizon toward the west.
"But the atmosphere out here on the level plains is mighty deceptive, you must remember, boys," Zander Forbes had warned them. "A horseman can keep riding for ten hours steadily in a straight line, and at the end of that time seem to be hardly any closer to the mountains than when he started."
"But we understood there'd be only two days of hard riding after we headed into the west!" remonstrated Lanky.
"Well, by late afternoon to-morrow we ought to be inside of fifteen or twenty miles of the foothills. But like as not we'll have to make a third camp on the prairie."
This turned out to be the case; and when the towering Rockies seemed to be so close, the boys wondered why Mr. Wallace decided to defer the remainder of their ride until the next morning.
"Fresh mounts in good condition," the gentleman explained, "are worth much more to us than the gaining of a little time."