"I believe it is."
"Then don't you think we'd better go for a few Mexican deer? It's nigh breakfast time."
It would be necessary to hunt for something unless they were to starve. A good place for a camp was selected, the weary horses were unsaddled, all but the half dozen ridden by the hunters, and then the hungry miners could at last find time to "wonder if the Lipans are looking round that prairie after us."
"They won't find us," said Captain Skinner. "Start your fires, boys, I heard a rifle. One of them has struck his game quick."
So he had, but it was a queer kind of "Mexican deer." It had long, smooth, sharp horns and a long tail, and when the miners came to carve that venison one of them said,
"Boys, it's the first beef we've had in two months."
"Cap," said another, "do you reckon thar's a cattle ranch around here?"
"Not so near the Apache range as this is."
"How came this critter here, then?"
"I kin tell you," said the miner who had shot that tall, long-legged, long-horned Mexican steer. "Thar was more of 'em. Wild as buffler. This one wasn't even branded. They're just no man's cattle, they are."