en here, lookin' at it, an' they say the thing is fed
from underground rivers, or springs, or somethin' that they can't even
guess.

"One of them was tellin' Boss Edwards, over on the Cimarron, that that
rock point that you see projectin' up was the peak of a mountain, an'
that this narrow trail we're on is the back of a ridge that used to
stick up high an' mighty above a lot of other things.

"I can't make it out, an' I don't try; it's here, an' that's all there
is to it. An' I ain't hangin' around it any longer than I have to."

"A stampede--" began Sanderson.

"Gentlemen, shut up!" interrupted Carter. "If any cattle ever come
through here, stampedin', that herd wouldn't have enough left of it to
supply a road runner's breakfast!"

They returned to the camp, silent and anxious.

CHAPTER XX

DEVIL'S HOLE

Sanderson took his turn standing watch with the other men. The boss of
a trail herd cannot be a shirker, and Sanderson did his full share of
the work.

Tonight he had the midnight shift. At two o'clock he would ride back
to camp, awaken his successor, and turn in to sleep until morning.

Because of the proximity of the herd to Devil's Hole an extra man had
been told off for the nightwatch, and Soapy and the Kid were doing duty
with Sanderson.

Riding in a big circle, his horse walking, Sanderson could see the
dying embers of the camp fire glowing like a big firefly in the
distance. A line of trees fringing the banks of the river near the
camp made a dark background for the tiny, leaping sparks that were shot
up out of the fire, and the branches waving in the hazy light from
countless coldly glittering stars were weird and foreboding.

Across the river the ragged edges of the rock buttes that flanked the
water loomed somberly; beyond them the peaks of some mountains, miles
distant, glowed with the subdued radiance of a moon that was just
rising.

Back in the direction from which the herd had come the ridges and
depressions stretched, in irregular corrugations, as far as Sanderson
could see. Southward were more mountains, dark and mysterious.

Riding his monotonous circles, Sanderson looked at his watch, his face
close to it, for the light from the star-haze was very dim. He was on
the far side of the herd, toward Devil's Hole, and he was chanting the
refrain from a simple cowboy song as he looked at the watch.

The hands of the timepiece pointed to "one." Thus he still had an hour
to s