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Day seemed to drag between dusk and nightfall a long time, a kind of gray twilight which had not thickened perceptibly when Simpson reached the ford of the Salt Fork and plunged into the woods. Here the gloom deepened, yet night seemed a long way ahead to a man who felt that its cover would bring him a measure of security.

It could not have been much past five o'clock, Simpson believed, although a guess was certain to be wide of the hour in weather like that, when a man's day had been stacked with events which seemed to make it long. He had no watch, that being a luxury sacrificed to honor along with his other possessions. It would have been useful on this journey to estimate distances by, a man knowing about how far he travelled in an hour with a band of horses as big as that.

There was no commotion of pursuit. The horses which had escaped must have belonged to the ranch, however, and headed for their grazing ground. The thieves would recover them with little trouble or delay, and soon would be hot after him, even though they had no others nearer at hand.

Simpson's scheme was to leave that muddy trail through the woods if he was not overtaken before dark, and cut for the open prairie. Unless they trailed him with lanterns, which he did not believe they would do, they