He knew what that meant, and he swore when he saw how the trail pointed straight to the east--to the broken, open country beyond One Man Coulee.

What had the boys been thinking of, to let that nester stock get past them in the night?
What had the line-riders been doing?
They were supposed to guard against just such a move as this.
Irish was sore from his fight in town, and he had not had much sleep during the past forty-eight hours, and he was ravenously hungry.

He followed the trail of the cattle until he saw that they certainly had gotten across the Happy Family claims and into the rough country beyond; then he turned and rode over to Patsy's shack, where a blue smoke column wobbled up to the fitful air-current that seized it and sent it flying toward the mountains.
There he learned that Dry Lake had not hugged to itself all the events of the night.

Patsy, smoking a pipefull of Durham while he waited for the teakettle to boil, was wild with resentment.

In the night, while he slept, something had heaved his cabin up at one corner.