Page:B M Bower - Heritage of the Sioux.djvu/203

SET AFOOT over the saddle-horn and was riding sidewise, smoking a meditative cigarette and staring out between the ears of his horse. They were tired; horses and men, they were tired to the middle of their bones. But they went ahead without making any complaints whatever or rasping one another's tempers with ill-chosen remarks; and for that Luck's eyes brightened with appreciation.

Presently, when they had ridden at least a mile down the arroyo, a gray hat-crown came bobbing into sight over a low tongue of rocky ground that cut the channel almost in two. The horses threw up their heads and perked ears forward inquiringly, and in a moment Happy Jack came into view, his gloomy, sunburned face wearing a reluctant grin.

"Well, we got on the trail," he announced as soon as he was close enough. "And we follered it to water. Applehead says fer you to come on and make camp. Tracks are fresher around that water-hole'n what they have been, an' Applehead, he's all enthused. I betche we land them fellers t'morrow."

Out of the arroyo in a place where the scant 191