“What’s that?”
“Don’t you think we ought to eat?”
“Do you want to waste time now making camp, and cooking, and all that? Right in the middle of stalking that herd?”
“Whew! I’ll have to pull in my belt a hole or two, then,” grumbled Dig.
“Pull it in then. No stop until we have another chance at the buffaloes—or until night comes and stops us,” declared his chum firmly. “We’re real hunters now. We’re not playing at it!”
For two hours they rode steadily. The two boys scarcely exchanged a word and the horses began to show weariness. Then they came up a dead gully into the edge of the very piece of timber for which they had been aiming. There was no water in sight, and both horses and riders were beginning to suffer for it. The timber seemed more extensive than had appeared from the round back of the mound across the plain. Nor, as far as the boys could see, were there any signs of the herd of buffaloes. It really seemed as though their chase had been fruitless—and the sun was fast going down.
“Whew!” said Dig, whimsically. “We’re a long way from home, Chet. What shall we do next?”
CHAPTER XX—A MIDNIGHT ALARM
As Chet surmised, the timber was open, with a good sod and little rubbish or shrubbery. None of the bushes was big enough to hide the buffaloes even at a distance.
Not an object moved under the trees as the boys pressed on their tired mounts. If the herd of buffaloes had come this way it had not stopped to graze in the shelter of the timber.