The smoke of the traders' camp-fire was curling up and drifting away into thin veils of film before the sun showed over the horizon hills. The bull-teams had taken up their steady forward push while the quails were still flying to and from their morning water-holes.
"Whoop-Up by noon," Barney predicted.
"Yes, by noon," Tom Morse agreed. "In time for a real sure-enough dinner with potatoes and beans and green stuff."
"Y' bet yore boots, an' honest to gosh gravy," added Brad Stearns, a thin and wrinkled little man whose leathery face and bright eyes defied the encroachment of time. He was bald, except for a fringe of grayish hair above the temples and a few long locks carefully disposed over his shiny crown. But nobody could have looked at him and called him old.
They were to be disappointed.
The teams struck the dusty road that terminated at the fort and were plodding along it to the crackling accompaniment of the long bull-whips.
"Soon now," Morse shouted to Stearns.
The little man nodded. "Mebbe they'll have green corn on the cob.
Betcha the price of the dinner they do."
"You've made a bet, dad."
Stearns halted the leaders. "What's that? Listen."