"Will they get many cattle? Were there enough of them to gather the whole drove?"
"They won't gather any cattle. It's a kind of bufler hunt for 'em. Lots of beef handy. They won't think of driving off any horned critters. Too slow, my boy. They'll take all the hosses they can get, though, and load 'em up, too."
Cal's face was in strong contrast with the dark, almost wooden sternness of the one he was looking into when he asked:
"Sam, did you say you killed one?"
"Can't say. Guess not. I meant to mark him, but it was his pony that seemed to go down. Didn't either of 'em get up, that I saw. He was an awful fool to follow me in the way he did."
Sam was shouting at the horses between his short, jerky sentences, and his long-lashed, short-handled whip was whirling and cracking in a way that they seemed to understand.
"How many were there of them?" asked Cal, the next opportunity he had.
"Hosses? Well, they must have scooped the eastern drove. More'n a hundred head. We've got about two hundred here, but your father's lost some real good ones, this time. No fault of mine."
"I didn't mean horses," said Cal. "How many Indians?"
"Oh, the redskins?" said Sam, with a tremendous crack of the long whip. "Nobody can guess how many. They seemed to swarm all around. 'Paches, of course, but it's a curiosity where they came from. We must work, now. Further to the left, Cal. That's it. They're started. What are those mules halting for!"