"Um-hum. My head aches some."
"Mine, too."
"You got a couple of black eyes, an' your lip is swol up."
"One of yours is turnin' black."
Curt regained his feet and walked slowly toward his horse. "Well, I'll be goin'. So long."
"So long," answered the Texan. He, too, swung into the saddle and each rode upon his way.
CHAPTER XVI
BACK IN CAMP
From their place of concealment high upon the edge of Antelope Butte, Alice Marcum and Endicott watched the movements of the three horsemen with absorbing interest. They saw the Texan circle to the south-eastward and swing north to intercept the trail of the unknown rider. They watched Bat, with Indian cunning, creep to his place of concealment at the edge of the coulee. They saw the riders disperse, the unknown to head toward the mountains at a gallop, and the Texan to turn his horse southward and ride slowly into the bad lands. And they watched Bat recover his own horse from behind a rock pinnacle and follow the Texan, always keeping out of sight in parallel coulees until both were swallowed up in the amethyst haze of the bad lands.
For an hour they remained in their lookout, pointing out to each other some new wonder of the landscape—a wind-carved pinnacle, the heliographic flashing of the mica, or some new combination in the ever-changing splendour of colours.