Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/167

 stuffed pillow kicked under the bunk. Waco's various possessions which he had carried in his roll were hanging on the wall: a slicker, a pair of trousers, a bright necktie and a black coat, an immense razor strop dangling below the garment like a beaver's tail. Waco's gun was not there. A dark blot on the floor near the bunk marked where he had fallen after they shot and clubbed him.

Tom piled the provisions on the table, making a quick selection of certain things, opening a package of this, taking a can of that, putting up rations sufficient for several days of flour, bacon, coffee, and the meagre essentials of life that a man may carry behind his saddle without adding materially to his horse's burden.

He looked around then for Waco's coffee pot and pan, finding them hanging under the slicker. With supplies and simple utensils stowed in the sack, Tom borowed Waco's slicker to protect it against rain, made a compact bundle of it all, then turned his attention to the three horses he had admitted to the corral.

They were Waco's horses, he knew, from their habit of herding together. They hadn't been around with the others long enough to get acquainted. One of them promised somewhat better than he had hoped, as the broadening day now revealed. It was a young animal, thin, as grass-fed and hard-ridden horses invariably are, but it had the lines of long wind and speed. He saddled it, tied his roll at the cantle, and went scouting around the bunk-house for ammunition.

The rifle and revolver which he had carried to Drumwell were, fortunately, of the same calibre. Eudora had told him they had belonged to her father. There was no