Page:Cherokee Trails (1928).pdf/205

 into a panic. They went galloping headlong into the dark, Simpson tight after them, thankful the animals had some other sense than sight—which experience had proved to him was little, if any, superior in the dark to man's—to keep them on the trail and hold them together. The dogs dropped behind, too indolent to follow far, although the horses held their excited gait for a mile or two. They gradually settled down to a swinging trot, and Simpson's heart lifted when he noted he was riding clear of the woods.

Directions were all one without the gleam of a familiar star or constellation to mark the way, but Simpson was not greatly concerned over that. He relied on the sense of the mare to lead her home. The trees blended down to the prairie border of shrubs; in a little while he rode clear of them, relieved to feel the prairie sod under his horse's feet. Here was elbow room; here a man could give them a run for their money, let them come when they might. Simpson was drenched to the skin; the roadside bushes had sopped his legs and poured several pints of water into his boots. But that was a condition he had been broken to long ago; it gave him no more concern nor discomfort than it would have given the average cowboy. A man learned early in that life to take a bootful of rainwater and ride on, letting it seep out and dry out as it would. It was one of the things which romancers did not stress when they discussed the wild free life of the range.

Just beyond the edge of the woods there was another cabin, dark, silent. The occupants were either in bed or the place was abandoned, but the sight of the house gave Simpson a mighty jump, and almost fixed him in the