At a point about fifty miles from the "town" so deeply longed for, a lone cow-punch appeared on the bank.
"How far to Rocky Point?" I cried.
"Oh, something less than two hundred miles!" drawled the horseman. (How carelessly they juggle with miles in that country!)
"It's just a little place, isn't it?" I continued.
"Little place!" answered the cow-puncher; "hell, no!"
"What!" I cried in glee; "Is it really a town of importance?" I had visions of a budding metropolis, full of gasoline and grub.
"I guess it ain't a little place," explained the rider; "w'y, they've got nigh onto ten thousand cattle down there!"
Ten minutes after that, Charley, after a desperate but unsuccessful fit of cranking, straightened the kink out of his back, mopped the perspiration from his face—and swore!
Almost immediately I felt, or at least thought I felt, a distinct change in the temper of the crew—for the worse. We used the better part of two days covering the last fifty miles into Rocky Point, only to find that the place consisted of a log ranch-house, two women, an old man, and "Texas." The cattle and the other men were scattered over a hundred miles or so of range. The women either would not or could not supply us with grub, explaining that the nearest railroad town was ninety miles away. Gasoline was out of the question. We might be able to buy some at the mouth of Milk River, two hundred miles down stream!