Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/88

 a hiding place, escaped attention. And he watched for signs of wolf and coyote as he moved along. Once he saw a herd of elk disappear over a rise, and made a mental note of the spot. There was to be a three-day open season on elk that fall.

He was rather more cheerful after that.

He missed nothing. The great blocks of salt, packed up so laboriously, had been licked almost to nothing. The streams were very low, pending another winter's snows, and where a pool still lay the mud showed innumerable hoof-prints. Once he saw the ominous dog-like tracks of a wolf.

After that he rode with his rifle across his knees, but he saw no wolf. Toward night the Miller began to show signs of fatigue; he moved along with the racking gait of a weary horse, and Tom had not the heart to spur him.

"Get along, horse," he said now and then. "Get along, can't you?"

At last he camped by a spring, set up a tarp as a protection against the cold night wind from the snow mountains just beyond, and having made a meal of sorts, crawled into his bed and slept. He had accomplished his purpose; no weakening on his part, no turning back, could get him to the ranch before Kay had gone.

He found his cattle late the next day, and began his round-up the following morning.

By noon he had them more or less in hand, and he commenced his single-handed drive. Once bunched they were tractable enough, but they moved with incredible slowness, and to his still sore and always impatient spirit the afternoon was endless. But now and then some recalcitrant would leave the herd, circle about and head forthe back trail again; he would ride madly, head it off and return, to find that the herd had lost its compactness and must be once more assembled.

Then again the slow advance, calves wailing and mothers calling, young steers stopping now and then to lower their heads and confront each other, invitations to battles which never took place.