MEN trained in the profession of the cowboys think and act quickly. Within a half hour following their meeting with Herbert Watrous, the party were travelling the other way, and shortly after emerged from the hills, where the ground was perfectly level, and advantage could be taken of the faint moonlight which would soon aid them.

As soon as they were fairly out in the open country, the Texans halted and sat motionless for a moment. They were listening for sounds which they heard not. Then Lattin slipped from the saddle and held his ear for a full minute pressed flat against the earth.

“It’s all right,” he remarked, swinging himself over the back of his pony. The three broke into a moderate gallop, riding almost abreast, for there was abundant room for them to do so.

[187]

It was about a mile from where the last change of direction took place that Strubell drew his horse down to a walk and edged in as close as he could to the hills, his companions, of course, doing the same. It was apparent that he was looking for the “new route” that had been spoken of. Herbert did all he could to aid, but when an abrupt change was made he saw no cause for it.

“That’s the reason why so few know about this,” explained the elder Texan, after stating that they had struck the right spot; “if it was plain enough to be seen miles off, Bell would have known all about it.”

“Ard and me found it out by accident,” added Lattin; “you observe how you turn here, just as if you was passing behind a door, before you hit the pass: that door hides it from the sight of anyone out on the prairie.”

The peculiar conformation had been noticed by Herbert, who replied that he could not have noticed it at noonday.

“The queerest thing,” added Lattin, “is that it’s just the same on the other side; if it wasn’t, the pass would have been found from[188] that direction; me and Ard was chasin’ a couple of Kioways one day that had stolen a horse, when they dodged in here and gave us the slip; that’s the way we hit it.”

An expert engineer could not have constructed a finer cut through the ridge—that is, for the present purpose. At no place was it more than a hundred or less than fifty feet in width, and the ground was so level that, had they chosen, their horses might have galloped the whole distance. There was little doubt that the ridge had been broken apart at this point by some terrific convulsion of nature, the opposite sides corresponding so perfectly that they would have dovetailed, could they have been pushed together.

This being the fact, a brief time only elapsed, when the three horsemen, whose sole purpose now was to overtake the party that was making off with Nick Ribsam, rode out upon the open plain beyond.

Here was another brief halt, while the younger Texan held his ear against the earth, the other neither moving nor speaking. He remained in his prone posture so long that it[189] was evident he had detected something. He must have caught a suspicious sound and was trying to locate it.

“It’s right ahead,” he said, as he once more climbed into the saddle, “and not fur off.”

Since the movements were now based on the discovery of the younger cowboy, the elder dropped slightly back and joined Herbert as an intimation that Lattin had become the leader.

The latter kept his pony on a walk, and the youth was close enough to him to observe that he frequently turned his head in different directions, showing that he was looking and listening with the utmost care. All at once he drew rein and the others halted by his side.

“Sh! you hear ‘em,” he whispered.

Herbert noticed the stamp of a horse, as he judged it to be, which could not have been far in advance, though the night was so still that a slight sound could be heard a long way. He was tempted to ask whether it was not true that if they could discover others close by, the[190] strangers had the same chance of learning about them, but he was sure his friends understood themselves too well to commit a blunder which he would detect.

Without another word between the men the younger let himself silently to the ground a............