The Texan nodded.  “I see.  You’re a damn good Injun, Bat, an’ I ain’t got no kick comin’ onto the way you took charge of proceedin’s.  But you sure raised hell when you stole that horse.  They’s prob’ly about thirty-seven men an’ a sheriff a-combin’ these here hills fer us at this partic’lar minute an’ when they catch us——­”

The half-breed laughed.  “Dem no ketch.  We com’ feefty mile.  Dat leetle hoss she damn good hoss.  We got de two bes’ hoss.  We ke’p goin’ dey no ketch.  ’Spose dey do ketch.  Me, A’m tell ’em A’m steal dat hoss an’ you not know nuthin’ ’bout dat.”

There was a twinkle in the Texan’s eye as he yawned and stretched prodigiously.  “An’ I’ll tell ’em you’re the damnedest liar in the state of Texas an’ North America throw’d in.  Come on, now, you throw the shells on them horses an’ we’ll be scratchin’ gravel.  Fifty miles ain’t no hell of a ways—­my throat’s beginnin’ to feel kind of draw’d already.”

“W’er’ we goin’?” asked the half-breed as they swung into the saddles.

“Bat,” said the other, solemnly, “me an’ you is goin’ fast, an’ we’re goin’ a long time.  You mentioned somethin’ about Montana bein’ considerable of a cow country.  Well, me an’ you is a-goin’ North—­as far North as cattle is—­an’ we’re right now on our way!”

CHAPTER I

THE TRAIN STOPS

“I don’t see why they had to build their old railroad down in the bottom of this river bed.”  With deft fingers Alice Marcum caught back a wind-tossed whisp of hair.  “It’s like travelling through a trough.”

“Line of the least resistance,” answered her companion as he rested an arm upon the polished brass guard rail of the observation car.  “This river bed, running east and west, saved them millions in bridges.”

The girl’s eyes sought the sky-line of the bench that rose on both sides of the mile-wide valley through which the track of the great transcontinental railroad wound like a yellow serpent.

“It’s level up there.  Why couldn’t they have built it along the edge?”

The man smiled:  “And bridged all those ravines!” he pointed to gaps and notches in the level sky-line where the mouths of creek beds and coulees flashed glimpses of far mountains.  “Each one of those ravines would have meant a trestle and trestles run into big money.”

“And so they built the railroad down here in this ditch where people have to sit and swelter and look at their old shiny rails and scraggly green bushes and dirt walls, while up there only a half a mile away the great rolling plains stretch away to the mountains that seem so near you could walk to them in an hour.”

“But, my dear girl, it would not be practical.  Railroads are built primarily with an eye to dividends and—­” The girl interrupted him with a gesture of impatience.