DEVIL'S HOLE Sanderson took his turn standing watch with the other men.

The boss of a trail herd cannot be a shirker, and Sanderson did his full share of the work.
Tonight he had the midnight shift.

At two o'clock he would ride back to camp, awaken his successor, and turn in to sleep until morning.
Because of the proximity of the herd to Devil's Hole an extra man had been told off for the nightwatch, and Soapy and the Kid were doing duty with Sanderson.
Riding in a big circle, his horse walking, Sanderson could see the dying embers of the camp fire glowing like a big firefly in the distance.

A line of trees fringing the banks of the river near the camp made a dark background for the tiny, leaping sparks that were shot up out of the fire, and the branches waving in the hazy light from countless coldly glittering stars were weird and foreboding.
Across the river the ragged edges of the rock buttes that flanked the water loomed somberly; beyond them the peaks of some mountains, miles distant, glowed with the subdued radiance of a moon that was just rising.
Back in the direction from which the herd had come the ridges and depressions stretched, in irregular corrugations, as far as Sanderson could see.

Southward were more mountains, dark and mysterious.
Riding his monotonous circles, Sanderson looked at his watch, his face close to it, for the light from the star-haze was very dim.