They had been sleek and fat when they started from the Circle L; they were growing lean, wild, and they were always ravenously hungry.
But where they could feed they required little attention; and the cowboys, after halting them, helped Garvin establish the lines of a rope corral into which they drove the _remuda_.

Then they built a fire and squatted wearily around it--at a respectful distance--to watch the cook--and to listen to him as he complainingly prepared supper.
The men had finished, and the long shadows of the dusk were stealing out over the desert, when Lawler--sitting on the chuck-box--heard Blackburn exclaim sharply: "_Hell's fire! Here they come!_" Blackburn had sprung to his feet, his eyes blazing with the pent-up wrath that had been in them for many days.

He was tense, his muscles straining; and his fingers were moving restlessly near the butt of the huge pistol that swung at his hip.

The fingers were closing and unclosing, betraying the man's passion.
Lawler got to his feet.

Following the direction of Blackburn's flaming eyes, he saw, perhaps a mile away, a large body of horsemen.