"That's Abe," he said excitedly to himself. "That was made late yesterday."
He stood erect and looked into the far reaches of the lower valley where the wreaths of mists in the hollows were turning to silver and those without shelter becoming dispelled as the sun spread its first warmth over the country.
"You've stolen my horse!" he said aloud, and evenly, as though he were dispassionately charging some one before him with the misdeed. "You stole my horse, but she ... was your woman!"
He straightened and lifted his head, moving it quickly from side to side as he strove to identify a moving object far below him that had risen suddenly into sight on one of the valley swells and disappeared again in a wash. It was a horse, he knew, but whether it was a roamer of the range or a beast bearing a rider, he could not tell. He waited anxiously for its reappearance, again hoping and fearing.
"Huh! You're carryin' nobody," he muttered aloud as the speck again came into view. "An' you sure are goin' some particular place!"
The animal was too far distant to be readily identified but about its swing was a familiar something and, inspired by an idea, Bayard returned to the house, emerged with a field glass and focused it on the approaching horse. The animal was his sorrel stallion.
"Come on, Abe," he said aloud, putting down the binoculars with a hand that trembled. "They've sent you on home, or you've got away.... But how about th' party you carried off?"
He walked to the gate and stood uneasily awaiting the arrival of the animal. As the sorrel came into sight from the nearest wash into which he had disappeared he was moving at a deliberate trot, but when he made out the figure of his waiting master he strode swifter, finally breaking into a gallop and approaching at great speed, whinnering from time to time.
The bridle reins were knotted securely about the horn. He had not escaped; Abe had been sent home. He stopped before Bruce and nuzzled the man's hands as they caressed his hot, soft nose.
"It looks as if they had trouble before they left, from th' way my room is," the man said to the horse as he stroked his nose, "but I know right well he'd never got you out of that corral alone an' never got you off in that direction unless somebody'd helped him; she might make you mind 'cause she rode you once. If it wasn't for that ... I'd think she'd been forced ... 'cause they must have had a racket...."