Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/99

 "hosses"—a hoss being a Rabelaisian anecdote scarcely meet for a church affair; at stated intervals she withdrew outside the doors to have a chummy smoke with herself. A great night following a great day!

Far out and away from Two Moons five horsemen waited under the starlight at a convergence of two roads. Two others came racking down a long slope from the north and joined them. The seven set their mounts to that long velvety gallop which only the tough cutting horse of the Big Country knows how to sustain over unending miles. Where the road dropped to a ford of the Poison Spider five more mounted men who had waited in the alder thickets spurred out and took their places in the solid core of moving horseflesh and human hate that skimmed the billowing divides. No word was passed. No man sought to recognize the one at his right nor the one at his left elbow. From leather boots hung on saddle horns the blunt butts of rifles protruded.

Here was the beginning of fulfillment of the word that had passed that day. There was to be a moving; sheep were to be moved that night.

Now the narrow ribbon of dust that was a road lay far behind the silent riders and their