"It's no fun to be afoot on the long range," he soliloquized. "A mile seems three times as long as when on horseback."
But there was no help for it; he must go on, and on he went, his feet now so sore in his wet boots that he could hardly take a regular step.
As he proceeded, he looked about for something to eat, but outside of a few half-green berries, found nothing. Birds were numerous, but without firearms they were out of his reach.
A less experienced person than Allen would have been much frightened by the solitude and loneliness. But the young ranchman was accustomed to being out alone for days at a time, and he did not mind it. He wished to get home more for bodily comforts than aught else.
At last, when Allen was beginning to congratulate himself that the roughest portion of the journey would soon be over he came face to face with a most unexpected difficulty. Emerging from a thicket, he found himself at the very brink of a gully all of ten feet wide and of great depth.
"Humph!" he muttered, as he came to a halt. "I can't jump that. How am I to get over?"
Looking up and down the opening, no bridge, either natural or artificial, was presented to view.
"I'll have to cut a pole and use that," he thought. "There is no use to tramp up and down looking for a spot to cross."
His pocketknife was still safe, and he drew it out and went to work with a will on a sapling growing some distance from the gully's edge.
The sapling had just been laid low and Allen was on the point of dragging it away when sounds broke upon his ear that filled him with surprise. He heard human voices, and one of them was that of a man he had encountered on the road, the fellow who had been riding Chet's horse!
"I reckon you have missed the road, Saul," said the man in a disgusted tone.
"No, I ain't missed nuthin'," was the reply. "So don't you go for to croak so much, Darry."
"Well, we don't appear to be makin' much headway," growled the fellow addressed as Darry.
"We'll come out all right, never fear. It's this yere blamed gully bothers me. We might git over afoot, but we can't cross it on the hosses."
Allen crouched back behind a bush, and a moment later the two men appeared in the opening near the gully. The fellow called Darry still rode Chet's horse, while he addressed as Saul was astride of Paul's animal. Behind the pair came a tall negro, riding a mustang and leading two others, little animals looking much the worse for constant and hard usage.