and there with darker lines that stood for
creeks and coulees, and off to the north the blue bulk of the Cypress
Hills.

I got off and sat me down upon a rock, rolled another cigarette, and
waited. The way to Pend d' Oreille led over the ridge, a half mile on
either side of me, as the spirit moved a traveler who followed an
approximately straight line. Whatever road they had taken, they could
not be more than three or four miles from that sentinel peak--for there
is a well-defined limit to the distance a mounted man may cover in a
given length of time. And from my roost I could note the passing of
anything bigger than a buffalo yearling, within a radius of at least six
miles. Therefore, I smoked my cigarette without misgiving, and kept
close watch for bobbing black dots against the far-flung green.

I might as well have laid down and gone to sleep on that pinnacle for
all the good my waiting and eye-straining did me. One hour slipped by
and then another, and still I did not abandon hope of their appearance.
Naturally, I argued with myself, they would turn back when I failed to
overtake them--especially if they had thoughtlessly followed some
depression in the prairie where I could not easily see them. And while I
lingered, loath to believe that they were hammering unconcernedly on
their way, the sun slid down its path in the western sky--slid down till
its lower edge rested on the rim of the world and long black shadows
began to creep mysteriously out of the low places, while buttes and
ridges gleamed with cloth of gold, the benediction of a dying day. Only
then did I own that by hook or by crook--and mostly by crook, I was
forced to suspect--they had purposely given me the slip.

A seasoned cowpuncher hates to admit that any man, or bunch of men, can
take him out into an open country and shake him off whenever it is
desired; but if I had been a rank tenderfoot they couldn't have jarred
me loose with greater ease. It was smooth work, and I couldn't guess the
object, unless it was a Mounted Policeman's idea of an excellent
practical joke on a supposedly capable citizen from over the line.
Anyway, they had left me holding the sack in a mighty poor snipe
country. Dark was close at hand, and I was a long way from shelter. So
when the creeping shadows blanketed pinnacle and lowland alike, and all
that remained of the sun was the flamboyant crimson-yellow on the
gathering clouds, I was astride of my dun _caballo_ and headi