In this wise he made his way to the top of the ridge, where he could look down upon the cabin and stable and corrals and see also the creek trail for a good quarter of a mile. The little valley lay quiet. His team fed undisturbed by the creek not far from the corral, which reassured Ward more than anything. Still, he waited until he had made reasonably sure that the bluff held no watcher concealed before he went back to where Rattler waited patiently.
"I guess they didn't plan to stir things up till they got those critters planted where they wanted them," he mused, while he rode down the bluff to his cabin. "But when they visit that bunch of stock again, I reckon things will begin to tighten!"
He was wary of exposing himself too much to view from the bluff while he did his chores that night, and he kept Rattler in the stable. Also, he slept very little, and before daybreak he was up and away. He had a rolled army blanket tied behind the saddle, a sack of grub and a frying-pan and a bucket for coffee. But he did not go any farther than the wolf-den, and he spent a couple of hours removing as well as he could any suspicious traces of having dug anything more than wolf pups from the bank on the ledge.