It took an hour to get supper, and we did full justice to it. By that time the horses had got their fill of the grass, and I never saw them act so much like themselves as they did when we brought them in to put the saddles on them. They acted as though they were impatient to be off.
“Now we are fairly afloat again,” said Tom, after we had ridden out on the prairie and put our horses into a gentle lope. “I wonder if that man Henderson has missed us yet?”
“You may be sure he has,” I replied. “And if he doesn’t send somebody to head us off or come himself, I shall miss my guess. We mustn’t think we are going to have this all our own way.”
“Oh, I don’t!” said Tom hastily. “But let me get the first pull at it and I’ll find that pocket-book. My luck never went back on me yet.”
I had not been long on the plains before I became really amazed at the sight that was presented to me. One, to have been with us, would have thought that we had purposely left a good portion of our herd behind, a prey for the wolves, for as far as our eyes could reach we saw cattle that had been abandoned by us as unfit to go farther, deliberately engaged in cropping the grass. The rain had revived them and they were doing what they could to save themselves. There must have been a thousand head within the range of our vision, and I knew that the cattlemen would soon be out after them. I expressed this hope to Tom and was surprised to find that he did not agree with me.
“You hope the cattlemen will come out after them?” said he, looking amazed. “Well, I don’t! The men will be certain to see us——”
“They won’t be out for a day or two, and consequently we’ll be beyond their reach,” I answered. “I am not afraid of the cattlemen. It is that Henderson that I am afraid of.”
We were eight days on the road, and all the time our horses showed signs of increased vigor, and at last we came across some things which Tom remembered; and finally the whitewashed walls of the ranch came into view. Then Tom began to look sober. It was easy enough to talk about finding the pocket-book, but to find it was a different thing. We approached the ranch with fear and trembling because we didn’t know who had been there since we left, but we found everything just as it ought to be. We thought it necessary to stake out our horses because the rain had started the grass so much that they would have strayed off before we had left them an hour.
“Now, Tom,” said I, as I drove the picket-pin into the ground and picked up my rifle and put it on the porch, so as to have it handy, “come on and show us your luck. Your luck never went back on you yet, and this is the time to prove it. Yes, sir; everything is just as we left it,” I added, as I pushed open the door. “There has nobody been here.”
Tom placed his rifle in one corner of the cabin and walked over to Mr. Davenport’s bed as confidently as though he already felt the pocket-book in his grasp, picked up the clothing one by one and shook them out, placing the articles carefully on the floor, so that he wouldn’t have to look at them again, and I sat down in the invalid’s rocking chair and watched his movements. But not a thing happened to come out. At last he came to the mattress, but here, too, his luck was at fault. Slowly and by handfuls he took out the hay with which the mattress had been stuffed, but not a thing in the shape of a pocket-book did he find. Then he removed the wooden slats that held the bed up and cautiously scrutinized every opening, and even looked under the bed itself, but it was all in vain. Whatever else the invalid did with his property, he certainly hadn’t hid it about where he lay.