of timber border; his caution must increase with his danger from that point onward.
Tom withdrew from the trail a safe distance along a little branch, seeking a brush-clump to screen his fire. He found a suitable spot without much seeking, picketed his horse, kindled a fire and prepared a generous supper. He felt he had it coming to him, being his first meal in considerably more than twenty-four hours. He had not felt the need of breakfast before leaving the ranch; Mrs. Ellison had been so disturbed she had not thought of it.
He had brought only one blanket, and that from Waco's bunk, aiming to keep his packet down to the very lowest weight and dimensions. That, the saddle blanket and Waco's slicker, made ample protection for a man whose bed had been the ground many an uncounted night in a land not half so kind as this. In spite of his bone-weariness he broke his sleep to get up and move his picketed horse to give it room to satisfy its appetite.
Morning broke with a threat of rain. An hour's ride beyond his camp Tom came to the river. Here the thieves had stopped for supper and to graze the horses. He judged there were at least five men in the party and, as they had not slept there, he concluded they could not have been a great distance from the end of their journey. At this point they had left the old cattle trail, taking one that followed the course of the river in an easterly direction.
This was a wagon road, an old one; its former course, brush-grown, rutted, could be traced in places where trees had blown down and blocked it, a new one made simply by driving through the brush in the line of least
