cover that stolen property. How it was to be accomplished did not trouble him at the start. What he should do and how he should do it must be determined by exigencies when he overtook the thieves. Mrs. Ellison had not been able to tell him how many men were riding the horsethief trail that night. Only two had come into the house, but she saw at least two or three more driving the stolen horses out.
As he passed the first homesteader's place, about three miles south of the Ellison ranch, Tom was hailed by an excited man who came running to the road to report that his four horses had been stolen. They had cleaned him out, not leaving him the hide nor hair of a horse on the place.
Tom scarcely more than paused to hear the frantic fellow's story. He told the hard-hit homesteader of the raid on Ellison's ranch as the shaggy, lean, wild-eyed man trotted along beside him. The sheriff had been notified; he would be along in due time. With such comfort as he could leave with the poor farmer in that assurance, Tom pushed on in a swinging gallop, following the raiders' trail.
Here the four horses stolen from the farmer had joined the main band; their coming had caused a flurry which was recorded in the ground, dusty now where it had been mud on the day of Tom's arrival. Not far along an old cattle trail cut the main road running north and south. This old trail led up from the southwest; cattle had been driven over it to Wichita and Wellington before the extension of the railroad to the Cherokee line. Here the horsethieves had turned off, heading for their refuge.
