I
could look away to the horizon in every direction, and, except for one
little herd of buffalo feeding peacefully on the westward slant of the
ridge, I could see nothing but rolling prairie, a vast undulating spread
of grassland threaded here and there with darker lines that stood for
creeks and coulees, and off to the north the blue bulk of the Cypress
Hills.
I got off and sat me down upon a rock, rolled another cigarette, and
waited. The way to Pend d' Oreille led over the ridge, a half mile on
either side of me, as the spirit moved a traveler who followed an
approximately straight line. Whatever road they had taken, they could
not be more than three or four miles from that sentinel peak--for there
is a well-defined limit to the distance a mounted man may cover in a
given length of time. And from my roost I could note the passing of
anything bigger than a buffalo yearling, within a radius of at least six
miles. Therefore, I smoked my cigarette without misgiving, and kept
close watch for bobbing black dots against the far-flung green.
I might as well have laid down and gone to sleep on that pinnacle for
all the good my waiting and eye-straining did me. One hour slipped by
and then another, and still I did not abandon hope of their appearance.
Naturally, I argued with myself, they would turn back when I failed to
overtake them--especially if they had thoughtlessly followed some
depression in the prairie where I could not easily see them.
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