"
He took another bite from his plug of tobacco and hitched his chair a
little closer.
"But yesterday," he went on, "Buck was riding herd up in the north
section, and he saw a place leadin' up a gully where the ground was
trampled down in a way that made it look almost as if there had been a
stampede. He could see that a big drove had passed through there and that
it must have been goin' in an almighty hurry. He thought at first they
might have got scared of a grizzly or somethin', but if that had 'a' been
so, some one of them would 'a' been caught and pulled down and there
wasn't any sign of anything like that. Then he looked a little closer at
the trail and he could see the track of hosses. Somebody was drivin' that
herd.
"He come in a flyin' with the report, but it was after midnight and I
didn't want to wake you up.
"But there's one thing more," he added, "that makes me dead sure. Chip
meandered in from town last night, a little the worse for wear. He'd
been celebratin' some and lookin' upon the likker when it was red, and he
was so far gone that I guess he'd have slept somewhere on the road if his
broncho hadn't had more sense than him and brought him home.
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