“A damn good thing he did!” said the trail boss. “Ain’t I had enough without that set of thieves?
“Eat, men,” he added to the half-clad group of stiffened men around the fire. “We have got work to do.”
He made no comment on the news the boy had brought, but led the way. With knives and sharpened sticks, they dug two graves in the sand; stood with hats off for a little time, silent. Some men began to kick dirt in on top of two saddle blankets. They rode away.
In the draggled bivouac at the head of the crossing there remained then only the mistress of Del Sol and the boy Cinquo, who had been ordered to remain. The latter engaged himself in broiling some pieces of meat at the fire, not for himself. His divinity came out at last, having made such toilet as she could.
“They’re down a-burying Dan and Bill, ma’am.”
The not infrequent tears came again to Taisie Lockhart’s eyes.
“They come ashore nigh a mile below here, a man told me. He come up from down the river when I was down after the horses. A tall young fellow he was, with a dark mustache. He told me he had found where the mill landed, and the boys and everything.”
“I know he was a-riding a Fishhook horse, ma’am. I’ve saw him afore, yes.”
Taisie Lockheart turned quickly away, with no reply.
“Well,” began Nabours surlily, without much speech to his mistress or to any one of the company, “we’ve got to get the horses acrost. Throw them in, Sinker; drive that old gray mare in first.”
“I don’t have to drive her in; she’ll foller me,” replied the boy. “I ain’t going to let nobody point her lead for me and my remuder. They know me. Old Suze, she’ll foller right in after me. Ef you can swim it, I kin. Besides, she’s six inches lower than she was last night.”
“Huh, six inches would do a heap o’ good out there, wouldn’t it?” grumbled Nabours. “You ain’t running this herd.”
“No, but I’m running the remuder,” said the boy stoutly. His eyes began to fill with tears.
“Oh, well, get in then!” The trail boss looked at him kindly, his own eyes none too dry. “There’s only one way to make a cow hand. If he lives he lives!”
None the less, he and his two lead men flanked the horse herd close behind the plucky boy when he spurred in ahead, followed by the bell mare and the rest of the horse band. The course was much as it had been with the cattle. The horses swam strongly and confidently and in due time made the head of the bar, which now was more exposed.