"Got to cook there, anyways," said they, and departed with the two pack mules and their bed horse.
That left the Cattleman, Windy Bill, Jed Parker, and me. In a moment Windy Bill came up to us whispering and mysterious.
"Get your cavallos and follow me," said he.
We did so. He led us two hundred yards to another cave, twenty feet high, fifteen feet in diameter, level as a floor.
"How's that?" he cried in triumph. "Found her just now while I was rustling nigger-heads for a fire."
We unpacked our beds with chuckles of joy, and spread them carefully within the shelter of the cave. Except for the very edges, which did not much matter, our blankets and "so-guns," protected by the canvas "tarp," were reasonably dry. Every once in a while a spasm of conscience would seize one or the other of us.
"It seems sort of mean on the other fellows," ruminated Jed Parker.
"They had their first choice," cried we all.
"Uncle Jim's an old man," the Cattleman pointed out.
But Windy Bill had thought of that. "I told him of this yere cave first. But he allowed he was plumb satisfied."