By this time I had given him some of the provisions, which I saw him fasten behind his saddle. I did the same with the others, and when I had gathered up my weapons we mounted and rode away into the darkness. I was satisfied that no one but Mr. Chisholm and Frank knew of our absence.
CHAPTER VIII.
TOM’S LUCK.
It was just such a night as you would take if you wanted to go a-fishing. The moon shone down on us through a thick haze, such as we had seen many a night since our arrival on the prairie, and every little sound that broke the stillness could be heard a long way off. We could distinctly hear the Rangers talking, and their camp was on the other side of Trinity. Everything that approached us on the plains—even the cattle, which, having had a rest after their drink, were beginning to crop the grass—loomed up on us to twice its natural size, and everything betokened rain; but we had seen so many such nights as that in Texas that we never gave it a moment’s thought. We walked our horses until we could no longer hear the Rangers talking, and then put them to a little faster gait.
“I can’t get over the way that man Henderson has acted,” said Tom. “It seems to me that you ought to have told somebody of it.”
“How many men did you ever see killed in a fair, stand-up fight?” I asked.
“None, I am glad to say.”
“I have, and that’s the reason I didn’t tell anybody what I saw. Henderson wouldn’t have been alive now.”
“I guess, after all, you did for the best,” added Tom; “but I would have been too mad to take a second thought. How do you suppose Henderson knew that his brother was with this outfit?”
I replied that he didn’t know it at all. He was only a speculator, and when the Rangers were ordered out to preserve the peace he came out with them, to see if he could find something that was worth buying.