Steady, the gait was kept up, and finally, after the breed seen that the ponies was too tired and weak to travel much more, he begin to look for a place where he could hide 'em and where they could rustle feed during the day that was soon to come. On the other end of the ridge he was following, he knowed of a place, and taking down his rope, he snapped it at the tired ponies and kept 'em on the move till that place was reached. There, another stop was made.
The storm had dwindled down and wore out till nothing was left but the high wind, it kept the snow drifting, which would keep on covering tracks and make traveling easier. But the breed didn't need the storm to help him no more, for, as he figgered, the country ahead and where he was headed was all open, he expected no riders would be found on the way at that time of the year, and as he'd been on that route many a time before with stolen stock, he knowed just how far it was between each good hiding and stopping place, both for himself and stock.
There was corrals on the way, some built by him, and others built by more of his kind. Sometimes he would change the iron on the ponies he'd just stole, but as the hair was too long for anybody to be able to read the brand that was on 'em, that could wait a while till he got further away and he could travel in daytime more.
He was pleased with everything in general as he left the ponies and started hunting a shelter for himself, he grinned, satisfied, as he melted snow for his coffee and figgered on the price the ponies would bring. He knowed good horses, and even tho they was in poor shape now he knowed what they'd turn out to be after a month's time on green grass.
And then there was "Smoky," that mouse colored horse;—he'd heard how four hundred dollars had been offered for that pony, and allowed that some other cowman to the south would be glad to give at least half that price for him, once it was showed what a cowhorse he really was.
A few hundred miles to the south was the breed's hangout, a place in a low country and where the snow hardly stayed. Once there he could take it easy, let the ponies fatten up, and after the brand was well "blotched" so nobody would recognize the original, he'd sell 'em one at a time for a good price or ship 'em out to some horse dealer. In the meantime he had nothing to worry about, the storm had took his trail off the face of the earth, there was a good seventy miles between him and where he'd started with the horses, and near a hundred miles to the Rocking R home ranch.
CHAPTER XI
"THE FEEL OF A STRANGE HAND"
A long month had passed since Clint had rode out to get Smoky and came back with a calf instead. Every day since, that cowboy had been for going after Smoky again, but the deep snow and storms had more than kept him breaking trails for snowbound cattle that was weak and needed bringing in, he couldn't find no time and hadn't been able to frame no excuse so as he could hit out for Smoky's range. Then one morning he got up with a hunch. He tried to keep it down, but every morning it got stronger till finally Clint just had to saddle up the best horse he had and hit out for where Smoky had been wintering.