Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/218

 ter than the first. But I’m glad you told me all this, Dad.”

Flash had been gazing steadily in one direction, Moran eventually noted this concentration and turned his eyes in the same direction. The horses were quiet and he knew that it was something else that held the dog’s interest for so long.

He looked on beyond the horses, down the valley which widened where each new stream flowed in. Five miles below, it opened onto the meadows of the Thoroughfare, one green strip of which was visible. A lazy ribbon of smoke ascended, twisting oddly about as the shifting breezes caught it. Moran turned his glasses on the spot.

“A camp,” he said. “It’s behind the point of a spur and I can’t see the camp itself but I saw a man haze the horses out onto the meadow. It’s a big outfit. There were more than thirty horses in the string. I’ll go down and see who they are.”

“It won’t hurt any to find out,” Kinney agreed.

Moran called Flash and started for the camp. When they passed the horses Flash looked them over until satisfied that all were there, then followed on after Moran. When they neared the other camp he was vastly uneasy at crossing the trails of so many men. He knew from the fact