At the end of the third day of scouting Jack came back to camp late, but jubilant.
"I've found what we're lookin' for, Art. I drifted across a ridge an' looked down into a draw this evenin'. A fellow was ridin' herd on a bunch of cows. They looked to me like a jackpot lot, but I couldn't be sure at that distance. I'm gonna find out what brands they carry."
"How?"
"The only way I know is to get close enough to see."
"Can you do that without being noticed?"
"Mebbe I can. The fellow watchin' the herd ain't expectin' visitors. Probably he loafs on the job some of the time. I'm gamblin' he does."
Roberts unloaded from the saddle the hindquarters of a black-tail deer he had shot just before sunset. He cut off a couple of steaks for supper and Ridley raked together the coals of the fire.
"Throw these into a fry-pan, Art, while I picket old Ten-Penny," said Jack. "I'm sure hungry enough to eat a mail sack. I lay up there in the brush 'most two hours an' that fellow's cookin' drifted to me till I was about ready to march down an' hold him up for it."
"What's the programme?" asked Arthur later, as they lay on their tarpaulins smoking postprandial cigarettes.
"I'll watch for a chance, then slip down an' see what's what. I want to know who the man is an' what brand the stock are carryin'. That's all. If it works out right mebbe we'll gather in the man an' drive the herd back to town."
"Then I go along, do I?"
"Yes, but probably you stay back in the brush till I signal for you to come down. We'll see how the thing works out."
Ridley lay awake for hours beneath a million stars, unable to get his alert nerves quiet enough for sleep. The crisis of his adventure was near and his active imagination was already dramatizing it vividly. He envied his friend, who had dropped into restful slumber the moment his head touched the saddle. He knew that Roberts was not insensitive. He, too, had a lively fancy, but it was relegated to the place of servant rather than master.
In the small hours Arthur fell into troubled sleep and before his eyes were fully shut--as it seemed to the drowsy man--he was roused by his companion pulling the blankets from under him. Ridley sat up. The soft sounds of the desert night had died away, the less subdued ones of day showed that another life was astir.
"Time to get up, Sleepy Haid. Breakfast is ready. Come an' get it," called Jack.