“She’ll be all right,” smiled Slim as he thought of Lightning’s wonderful endurance. There was no need to tell anyone of the capabilities of his horse.
While the others had to rope their mounts to separate them from the milling string of horses in the corral, Slim only whistled once and Lightning responded instantly.
“My gosh!” exclaimed Pat Beals enviously. “You must have a circus horse. I can yell my head off and I can’t get any of my mounts to come near me.”
“Maybe they don’t like your voice,” suggested Walt Kelly, who had just finished a battle with a calico cayuse and was badly winded.
They swung into their saddles and started out on the day’s ride, Pat and Doug heading west to ride along the headwaters of Stony creek, Walt riding north toward the range of the Double O and Slim and the foreman backtracking along the trail to Dirty Water.
Joe Haines was openly admiring Lightning.
“Quite a horse,” he said. “Must be fast?”
“She can go places,” grinned Slim, but he did not encourage the conversation along that line.
“Have any trouble getting into the Creeping Shadows country?” asked the foreman.
“Why?”