CHAPTER VII

A RACE IN THE MOONLIGHT

Now through waving grass up to their knees, now through stretches
of sage brush the hunters rode. Three or four times they caught
sight of cattle in the distance, which Horace eagerly declared
belonged to the Half-Moon, explaining that the biggest herds were
in Long Creek bottoms, about fifty miles southwest, where the
cattle could find water as well as good grazing ground.

"Fifty miles, gracious! Do you own so much land?" asked Larry of
Mr. Wilder.

"No. We have a thousand acres, more or less. But my neighbors and
I have leased the rights to graze in Lone Creek."

"Neighbors?" repeated the elder of the brothers in surprise. "Why
I can't see any house but yours. In fact, I haven't seen any since
we left Tolopah."

"And there isn't any within thirty miles. There are two on the
south and more north, even farther away. But we call them
neighbors just the same. Anybody within a day's ride is a
neighbor," explained the ranchman. And as he noted the look of
amusement that appeared on the faces of the brothers, he added:
"You won't think so much of distances after you've been out here a
while."

At the end of two hours, as they mounted the crest of a great roll
in the prairies, the dried-up course of a stream was disclosed.

"If you follow that, it will lead you to Lone Creek," explained
Horace. "Down about ten miles there's a place called the Witches'
Pool, where we go fishing. It's so deep it never dries. We'll go
there some day."

"More ghosts?" inquired Larry as he repeated the name of the pool.

"No, no ghosts," laughed Mr. Wilder, "just the _ignis fatuus_, or
will-o'-the-wisps. All cowboys are very superstitious, you must
remember. The land round the pool is swampy and at night you can
sometimes see the lights dancing about. I suppose some one saw
them, and, finding no person there, immediately decided the pool
was a gathering place for witches."

"Pete says it's the bodies of the men who have died of thirst on
the plains searching for water," declared Horace in an awed tone.

"That's an ingenious explanation, but it is not the truth, my boy.
The lights are caused by certain gases that come from the marshy
ground and glow when the atmosphere is in a certain condition.
Over in Scotland, on the peat bogs, they call them 'friars'
lanterns.'"

"My, but I'd like to see one," sighed Tom.

"Then I'm afraid you'll be obliged to camp by the pool. Y