Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/144

 The Man from Bar-20 herd saw no more looming cattle or riders, which seemed to be a matter of significance to them, for they faced southward, guns in hand, and pushed slowly back along the flanks of the little herd. Peering into the shrouding gray darkness, tense and alert, eyes and ears straining to read the riddle, they waited like sooty statues for whatever might occur, rigid and unmoving.

A sudden thickening in the night. A figure seemed to flow from indefinable density to the outlines of a mounted man. A low voice, profanely irritant, spoke reassuringly and grew silent as the rider oozed back into the effacing night.

"Shore," muttered a herder, relaxing and slipping his gun into its holster. He moved forward swiftly and turned back a venturesome cow. His companion, growling but relieved, shrugged his shoulders and settled back to wait.

Minutes passed and then another lumbering blot emerged out of the dark, became a cow, and found reassurance in numbers as it willingly joined the herd. The escorting rider kept on, pushed back his sombrero and growled: "They're scattered to h—l an' gone to-night; but," he grudgingly admitted, "they acts plumb do-cile. S'long."

Another wait, long and fruitless, edged anew the nerves of the herders. Then Quigley, Ackerman, and Purdy moved out of the obscurity of the night and took 132