"We got neighbors," announced Big Bill, watching a thin column of smoke rising from the mesa back of them.
"Guess I'll drift over after supper," Harshaw said. "Maybe they can give me the latest news about high water down the river."
Hawks had just come in from the remuda. He gave information.
"I drifted over to their camp. An old friend, one of 'em. Gent by the name of Bandy Walker. He's found that outfit of he-men he was lookin' for."
"Yes," said the cattleman non-committally.
"One's a stranger. The other's another old friend of some o' the boys. Jake Houck he calls hisself."
Bob's heart shriveled within him. Two enemies scarcely a stone's throw away, and probably both of them knew he was here. Had they come to settle with him?
He dismissed this last fear. In Jake Houck's scheme of things he was not important enough to call for a special trip of vengeance.
"We'll leave 'em alone," Harshaw decided. "If any of them drop over we'll be civil. No trouble, boys, you understand."
But Houck's party did not show up, and before break of day the camp of the trail herd outfit was broken. The riders moved the herd up the creek to an open place where it could be easily crossed. From here the cattle drifted back toward the river. Dud was riding on the point, Hawks and Dillon on the drag.
In the late afternoon a gulch obstructed their path. It ran down at right angles to the Rio Blanco. Along the edge of this Harshaw rode till he found an easier descent. He drove the leaders into the ravine and started them up the other side of the trough to the mesa beyond. The cattle crowded so close that some of them were forced down the bed of the gorge instead of up the opposite bank.
Bob galloped along the edge and tried to head the animals back by firing his revolver in front from above. In this he was not successful. The gulch was narrow, and the pressure behind drove the foremost cattle on to the river.
The dogies waded in to drink. The push of the rear still impelled the ones in advance to move deeper into the water. Presently the leaders were swimming out into the stream. Those behind followed at heel.
Dillon flung his horse down into the ravine in the headlong fashion he had learned from months of hill riding. He cantered along it, splashing through shallow pools and ploughing into tangled brush. When he came within sight of the river the cattle were emerging from it upon a sandy bar that formed an island in midstream.