“Tooth? Oh, yeah. Say, I forgot it. Let’s go.”
They went ahead again, stumbling along, while the rain increased, and they began to be very uncomfortable. Added to their discomfort was the knowledge that they had lost all sense of direction. Hashknife knew they were traveling parallel to the river until they were shot at, and from that time on he wasn’t sure of anything.
He felt they had traveled more than a mile, but they found no wagon-road. There were no stars to guide them, and the wind had shifted several times.
“‘We’re lost, the captain shouted,’” declared Sleepy, as they halted against the bank of a washout, where the wind and rain did not strike them so heavily.
“That wind was blowin’ from the north when we started, and we tried to foller the wind,” laughed Hashknife. “Is yore tobacco wet?”
They rolled a smoke and considered things.
“I wish we was back in that nice warm caboose,” said Sleepy. “Gosh, that shore was a comfortable place. But this is jist my luck. It makes five times we’ve started East with a train of cows—and never got out of the sagebrush.”
“Aw, we’ll pick ’em up in Pinnacle City, Sleepy.”
“Yeah, that’s great. But where’s Pinnacle City?”
“Two miles from the railroad bridge.”