For hours they rode at a shuffling trot that covered the miles. It was well after sundown when they halted in a sheltered valley. Waddles cooked a meal over an open fire. Bed rolls were spread and the men were instantly asleep. Three hours before sunup the cook was once more busy round a fire. The men slept on, undisturbed by the sounds, but when he issued the summons to rise they rolled out. In a space of five minutes every man was eating his meal; for they were possessed of that characteristic which marks only the men who live strenuously and much in the open,—the ability to fall instantly asleep after a hard day and to wake as abruptly, every faculty alert with the opening of their eyes.
The meal was bolted. The men detailed to guard the horses hazed them into a rope corral. Saddles were hastily cinched on and the men rode off through the gloom, leaving Waddles and three others to pack and follow later in the day. Each man lashed a generous lunch on his saddle before riding off.
They held a stiff trot and in an hour out from camp they struck rough going, the choppy nature of the country announcing that they were in the edge of the Breaks. The horses slid down into cut-bank washes and bad-land cracks, following the bottoms to some feasible point of ascent in the opposite wall. Daylight found them twenty miles from camp and the horses were breathing hard. They turned into a coulee threaded by a well-worn trail. Three miles along this Bentley turned to the right up a branching gulch with eight men. Another mile and Carp led a similar detachment off to the left. Billie rode with the sheriff and Harris at the head of the rest, holding to the beaten trail.
"They had hours the start of us," Harris said. "They'd catch up fresh horses on the range and keep on till they got in sometime in the night."
He motioned to Billie.
"You fall back," he said. The men had drawn their rifles from the scabbards. "They never did post a guard. It wouldn't occur to Lang that such a force could be mustered and start out short of a month. If he thought so they'd be out of here and scattered instead of having a lookout along the trail. But there's just a chance. So for a little piece you'd better bring up the rear."
She started to dissent but the sheriff seconded Harris's advice.
"You move along back, Billie," he said. He patted her shoulder and smiled. "I'm a-running this layout and if you don't mind the old sheriff he'll have to picket you."
She nodded and pulled Papoose out of the trail till the others filed by, riding with Horne in rear of the rest.
The party halted while Harris dismounted to examine the trail. It was hard-packed but the scant signs showed that shod horses had come in since any had gone out.