"What's the row?" the veteran cattle puncher demanded.
Before Dick could reply there was a disturbance among the tethered ponies as though something had alarmed them. In a flash it came to Dick that the intruder he had seen was trying to steal a horse. The ponies did not dream. When they saw anything they knew it was real. Accordingly the boy sharply called:
"A horse thief, Billee!"
This warning was enough to set any Westerner on the alert in an instant, for, in spite of the progress of automobiles, the horse is still, in the cattle reaches of the west, a thing most vitally needed.
"Horse thieves, eh?" cried Billee in ringing tones. "The varmints!
Come on, boys! We'll get 'em!"
His cries and the voice of Dick served to rouse the others in camp and in a few moments Nort, Bud, Yellin' Kid and Snake Purdee had unrolled from their warm blankets and had grabbed their guns. Bud threw some light cottonwood on the embers and the blaze that at once resulted showed objects up fairly plainly, though there was sufficient shadow to make the picking out of any particular horse thief very difficult.
"Where is he—which way did he go?" shouted Yellin' Kid.
"Over there!" and Dick pointed the trail along which they had ridden that day. Quickly he told his story—how he had been awakened by the midnight visitor kicking the boy's foot as he strode over him.
"Come on!" called Snake and in a moment the entire camp was trailing after him in the direction where Dick had seen the old man vanish.
But it was like pursuing one of the shadows of the night, and it did not take long, after emerging from the circle of illumination of the fire into the blackness of the surrounding night, to impress all with the idea that a capture was out of the question.