"Only, I say, Mr. Wilder, let's drop Megget. All we did was to get
away from him."
"As you like," smiled the ranchman, "but that's something."
CHAPTER VII
A RACE IN THE MOONLIGHT
Now through waving grass up to their knees, now through stretches
of sage brush the hunters rode. Three or four times they caught
sight of cattle in the distance, which Horace eagerly declared
belonged to the Half-Moon, explaining that the biggest herds were
in Long Creek bottoms, about fifty miles southwest, where the
cattle could find water as well as good grazing ground.
"Fifty miles, gracious! Do you own so much land?" asked Larry of
Mr. Wilder.
"No. We have a thousand acres, more or less. But my neighbors and
I have leased the rights to graze in Lone Creek."
"Neighbors?" repeated the elder of the brothers in surprise. "Why
I can't see any house but yours. In fact, I haven't seen any since
we left Tolopah."
"And there isn't any within thirty miles. There are two on the
south and more north, even farther away. But we call them
neighbors just the same. Anybody within a day's ride is a
neighbor," explained the ranchman. And as he noted the look of
amusement that appeared on the faces of the brothers, he added:
"You won't think so much of distances after you've been out here a
while."
At the end of two hours, as they mounted the crest of a great roll
in the prairies, the dried-up course of a stream was disclosed.
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