Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/187

 last he sighted the Texans making some effort to gather them up again. But there seemed to be a sort of dazed heartlessness in their work, as of men stunned by the task that confronted them. Hartwell found a good deal of satisfaction in that. It was something, at least, on account of what he owed them for that night of torture in the rawhide rope.

He kept close to the creek, skirting along in the brush. Until midday he followed the stream, hardly out of sight of cattle all the way. That herd had stampeded to the last animal, he believed, with broadening satisfaction. The knowledge of his complete success was like the scent of broiling steak. It made him sit up in the saddle and feel rather keen and eager, in spite of the mauling in body and mind which the past three days had given him.

It began to be impressed on him about that time, dimly and not quite understood at first, that he was coming into a country where he had been before. There was something familiar in the sweep of the creek here, something—and there ahead of him, in the elbow of the stream as he rose the ridge, was Malcolm Duncan's ranch.

There it was, as peaceful to behold in the midday sun of that autumn day as a picture in a frame upon the wall. Several horses were hitched in front, and even at that distance he could tell by the way they stood that they had been ridden hard and