Page:Dave Porter at Star Ranch.djvu/129

Rh steed he had so admired, and the others had equally good horses.

"Shall we take our guns?" asked Roger.

"What for?" asked the cowboy.

"Oh, I thought we might get the chance to shoot something."

"We'll not have much time to look for game," answered Sid Todd. "However, if you want to take your shootin' irons, there ain't no objections." So each of the lads provided himself with a shotgun. Todd carried a pistol, of the "hoss" variety and nearly two feet long, the same being deposited in tht holster of his saddle.

The course was to the westward, to the foothills of the distant mountains. Here, the cowboy explained, was a treacherous ravine, the sides overgrown with a tangle of low bushes. The cattle loved to get in the bushes, finding something there particularly appetizing to eat, and often the rocks and dirt would give way and a steer would go down in the hollow and be unable to get out.

"They don't seem to know how to climb the rocks," said Sid Todd. "And you've got to fairly drive 'em the right way, or they'd stay in the hollow till they died."

Dave felt like "letting himself loose," as he expressed it, and with a level stretch of several miles before them, he called on Phil and Roger for a race.