If he could find one of the head-water streams of
the Pigskin, all of which took their rise in the gulches of the mesa,
there could be no danger of losing the way.
It was some little time after he had left the shoulderings of the
eastern range behind that a singular thing happened. Far away on his
right he heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Though the moon was nearly
full and the treeless landscape was bare of any kind of cover, he could
not make out the horseman who was evidently passing him and going in the
same direction. At first he thought it was some one who was making a
_detour_ to avoid him. Then he smiled at the absurdity of the guess and
concluded that he himself was off the trail. This conclusion was
confirmed a little later when two other travellers, announcing
themselves to the ear as the first one had, and also, like the first,
invisible to the sharpest eye-sweep of the moonlit plain, passed him at
speed.
After that Blount had the solitudes and vastnesses to himself, and it
was not until after the mesa-land had been crossed without a sign of a
water-leading gulch to guide him to the Pigskin, and the bronco was
patiently picking its way through the hogback of the western range, that
the boyish thing he had been led to do took shape as an adventure which
might have discomforting consequences.
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