Late that evening McKee went out into the dooryard to be alone with the memory of the one stroke he had made and to continue his plans for the master blow he was to make. But he was not alone. Hilton followed and spoke quietly over his shoulder, saying:
"Yes, Sam, the chances are that he'll go to the tank alone."
Whereupon the other started and whispered savagely:
"How'd you know I was thinkin' that?"
Hilton laughed lowly and put an arm across Sam's shoulders and they walked at length in the darkness, talking, talking.... The Easterner looked close into McKee's face and flattered and suggested and encouraged....
CHAPTER XX
"WORK AMONG THE HEATHEN"
The chuck wagon had gone, followed by the bed wagon and the cavet, the last made up of one hundred and forty saddle horses, stringing along the road, a solid column of horse flesh. In a day the round-up would be on. Camp was to be made first far down on Coyote Creek and the country from Cathedral Tank eastward would first be ridden.
Outwardly the departure was not so different from others of its sort. There were rifles on saddles, to be sure, but there was banter and fun. Still, a spirit prevailed which told that the men were not wholly concerned with the normal business of the range. There were other things, more grim, more serious, than gathering steers and branding calves.