If any riders had passed the cowboys must have seen them, for there had been a moon, and the basin afforded in the vicinity of the herd, was clear and unobstructed.
Enraged at the suspicious nature of the incident, Blackburn took half a dozen cowboys and rode back, while the remainder of the trail crew sent the herd eastward.

It was late in the afternoon when Blackburn returned, disappointed, grim, and wrathful.
"There's a bunch trailin' us, all right," he told Lawler; "about a dozen.

We seen where they'd stopped back in the canon a ways--where Garvin said he'd seen 'em sneakin' back.

We lost their tracks there, for they merged with ours an' we couldn't make nothin' of 'em.

But at the foot of the slope we picked 'em up again.