He was taught these things, and many more, while the work of rebranding the Diamond K cattle went forward.
This work was no sinecure. Dade and Malcolm, and even Bob, assisted in it--Malcolm and Bob attending to the heating of the branding irons while Calumet roped the steers and dragged them to the fire where Dade pressed the white-hot irons to their hips. But the work was done finally, and the cattle turned out into the valley.
On the night that saw the finish of the branding, Calumet, Dade, and Malcolm retired early. Betty and Bob remained in the kitchen for some time, but finally they, too, went to bed.
At one second before midnight Calumet was sleeping soundly--as soundly as it is possible for a man to sleep who has been working out of doors and is physically tired. At exactly midnight he was wide awake, lying on his back, looking with unblinking eyes at the ceiling, all his senses aroused and alert, his nerves and muscles at a tension.
He did not know what had awakened him, though he was convinced that it had been something strange and unusual. It had happened to him before; several times when cattle had stampeded; once when a Mexican freighter at a cow camp had rose in the night to slip his knife into a puncher with whom he had had trouble during the day. Incidentally, except for Calumet, the Mexican would have made his escape. It had happened to him again when a band of horse thieves had attempted to run off some stock; it had never happened unless something unusual was going on. And so he was certain that something unusual was going on now, and he lay still, looking around him, to make sure that what was happening was not happening in his room. He turned his head and looked at Dade. That young man was breathing heavily and regularly. He turned toward the door of the room. The door was closed. A flood of moonlight entered the window; objects in the room were clearly distinguishable, and nothing seemed wrong here. But something was wrong--he was certain of that. And so he got carefully out of bed and looked out of the window, listening, peering intently in all directions within the limits of his vision. No sound greeted his ears, no moving object caught his gaze. But he was not satisfied.