just having a horse again.
I've spent so much time sittin' on the hurricane deck of a horse that I ain't at home anywhere else.
Little Bear's folks came in shy of midnight, and we all bedded down close together, with Cap, Brandy, an' me sharin' time with the cows.
Cap an' Brandy were sure enough hungry.
They'd been eatin' squirrel, rabbit, and skunk most of the time since the stampede, when they ate anything at all.
'There's hills up ahead,' Cap said.
'Maybe we'll run into Orrin an' his carts.
Those are the Thunder Breeding Hills. If he didn't find anything west of the Turtles, he'd keep on west, wouldn't he?' 'He would. Or I think he would.' Yet I was worried. We were a long way from the mines, we had only thirty head or so, we were short on riding stock, and we had no grub or ammunition. We'd lost the biggest part of our outfit, and we were riding strange country.
There were Sioux around, and there were the white renegades who'd attacked before. Yet it felt good to be back with Cap. Brandy and Lin were new men, but Cap I knew from way back. Any kind of a stir-up, be it work or fight, Cap would stand his ground.
The cattle had lost weight. A stampede can run a good many pounds off a critter, and these had been driven hard since.
The way we drove them was across a prairie with islands of brush and occasional swamps. Time or two we had to stop and rope some old mossyhorn out of the bog. Those islands of brush worried me because a body could get close to a man before he realized. And they did.
All of a sudden, Cap ups with his hand and outs with his Winchester, and we saw three men ride into view from behind a clump of brush.
I had no idea who they were but had a mighty good idea they weren't friendly.
Chapter XVII
The sun lay bright upon the land ahead and bright upon the three horsemen who rode to meet us.
Cap glanced around. 'Good boy,' he said.
'Brandy's facin' the other way. So's Lin.' The Indians were behind us and to the right, concealed from the riders by the brush.
'There will be more of them,' Cap said.
'There will,' I agreed, and glanced at the small lake that lay ahead and to the right. It was likely they would attack from the left and try to drive us toward the lake. The three riders were too obvious.
'Howdy, boys! Huntin' for something?' 'Lookin' to buy cattle.' The speaker was a big, bearded man in a buckskin coat worked with blue and red beads. He had a rifle in his hand and a fur cap.
'Sorry. These are not for sale.' 'Make you a good offer?' His horse was sidling around, and I saw him throw a quick glance toward left rear.
'Not for sale, boys,' I said. I rode out from the herd a little and toward the right, outflanking them a little, and I could see they didn't like it.
Cap had promptly shifted a little to the left, and I said, 'Better move, boys. We're coming through!' 'Sell 'em,' the big man repeated, 'or we'll take them!' 'All right, Brandy!' I yelled, and he let out a whoop and started the cattle.
They were headed that way, and cattle like to go where they're pointed, so they started moving. Brandy let out another whoop, and one of the steers turned right at the nearest horsemen.
The sudden rush of cattle split the three riders. Two went one way and one the other, and the nearest one was coming my way, so I headed right at him. In trying to swing wide of a head-on collision, he put his horse into the soft ground at the lake's edge, and his horse floundered in the mud, his rider swearing.
Wheeling the dun, I raced along the flank of the moving cattle, heard two quick shots from behind, and saw Lin on the ground, his horse beside him; he was shooting across a fallen log.
A half-dozen riders had come from behind one of those clumps of brush, and Lin, being on the ground, had the advantage.
I saw a horse stumble and go down, pitching his rider over his head. Mud leaped in front of another rider, and his horse swerved sharply, and a third bullet had him dropping his rifle and grabbing for a mane hold as his horse went charging away, cutting across the front of the other riders.
It all happened in seconds. Two men were down, a horse running wild and the cattle charging. The big man with the beard threw up his rifle to shoot at me, but Cap burned him with a quick shot, and my bullet burned his hand. What other damage it did, I couldn't see, but I did see a splash of blood on the buckskin coat and on the saddle.
Lin was back in the saddle and riding up the flank of the small herd, and we swung the cattle past the lake and into the open toward some sand hills looming ahead.
Brandy closed in behind the herd, and we moved them out of there.
Cap Rountree closed in toward me.
'Pilgrims,' he said contemptuously. 'They haven't burned the powder we have.' 'We were lucky. Next time, we may not get the breaks.' We pushed the cattle on, keeping a lookout on all sides. What Cap said was obviously true. The men who had attacked us were tough men and hard but not seasoned fighting men.
Any man can take a gun in hand and go out to use it, and often enough he is braver because of that gun. But fighting is like playing poker. You have to pay to learn, and you only learn with the cards in hand and money on the table. Cap and me, well, we had been through more fights in any one year of our lives than most men get in a lifetime.
Me? Well, I'd been fightin' one way or another all my life. Cap had begun as a mountain man, and he'd fought Sioux, Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches, and he still had his hair.
'That youngster,' Cap said, 'he'll do to take along. He was almighty cool.' 'So was Lin,' I added. 'Don't discount that heathen Chinee.' 'Heathen? Hell!' Cap spat. 'He knows more than both of us. Why we was talkin' the other night, and he come up with some of the damndest stuff you ever heard!' We were not through with fighting, and we knew it, so we moved the cattle along faster than we should have to keep the weight on them. We wanted to get to some place where we could make a stand. We'd got by them, but they still outnumbered us, and we could expect trouble.
'Maybe we should take it to them,' Cap suggested. 'Discourage them. I'm a pretty good horse thief when need be.' 'Good idea,' I suggested, 'but let's try for distance.' 'How you fixed for ca'tridges?' 'Short,' I said. 'We've got to avoid a fight if we can.' 'Wished Orrin would show up.' 'Or Tyrel and the boys with those packhorses.
We're going to need them, Cap. Need them bad.' Spotting a long, sandy draw, I turned the herd down it, as the sand was deep and left few tracks. There was small hope that it would help, but we needed every advantage.
Toward nightfall, we turned up another draw, crossed a gravely hill, and camped on a knoll close to a small grove. We built our fire for coffee inside the grove where the glow of the fire was hidden. The cattle, exhausted from the drive, grazed only a little before lying down.
'One man on guard,' I said. 'We all need rest. Stay on the ground and don't skyline yourself.' After they were settled and we had eaten, I walked out from the camp. Nothing could be seen but the darkness of the trees and brush. The cattle merged with the darkness.
While the others slept, I took count as well as I could without disturbing them. I could see fourteen cartridges in Cap's belt, eight in Brandy's. Lin had no belt but might have some in his pockets. How many were in their rifles I could not guess. My rifle was fully loaded as was my six-shooter. Nine bullets remained in my belt. We'd be lucky to survive any kind of an Indian fight or any other.
Shortly before daybreak, we drove off the hill, found a small stream, and walked the cattle in the water for over a mile. That such tactics would delay them more than a little was unlikely, yet at least some of the attackers had been greenhorns.
Who, then, were they? There had been no attempt of which I knew to steal our cattle. They seemed more interested in stopping or delaying us.
Leaving the water, we found where a herd of buffalo had passed and followed in their tracks, losing our trail
