It was the trick of range-men--he could not believe that the strange settlers, ignorant of the country and the conditions, would know enough to do this.

He hesitated before several possible routes, the rain pouring down upon him, a chill breeze driving it into his face.

If there had been hoofprints to show which way the boys had gone, the rain had washed them so that they looked dim and old and gave him little help.
He chose what seemed to him the gorge which the boys would be most likely to follow--especially at night and if they were in open pursuit of those who had driven the cattle off the benchland; and that the cattle had been driven beyond this point was plain enough, for otherwise he would have overtaken stragglers long before this.
It was nearing noon when he came out finally upon a little, open flat and found there Big Medicine and Pink holding a bunch of perhaps a hundred cattle which they had gleaned from the surrounding gulches and little "draws" which led into the hills.

The two were wet to the skin, and they were chilled and hungry and as miserable as a she-bear sent up a tree by yelping, yapping dogs.
Big Medicine it was who spied him first through the haze of falling water, and galloped heavily toward him, his horse flinging off great pads of mud from his feet as he came.
"Say!" he bellowed when he was yet a hundred yards away.

"Got any grub with yuh ?" "No!" Irish called back.
"Y'AIN'T" Big Medicine's voice was charged with incredulous reproach.
"What'n hell yuh doin' here without GRUB?
Is Patsy comin' with the wagon ?" "No.