The night wind swished the grasses; dark storm clouds blotted out the northern stars; the prairie wolves mourned dismally.
Day broke cold, wan, threatening, under a leaden sky.

The hunters traveled thirty miles by noon, and halted in a hollow where a stream flowed in wet season.

Cottonwood trees were bursting into green; thickets of prickly thorn, dense and matted, showed bright spring buds.
"What is it ?" suddenly whispered Rude.
The plainsman lay in strained posture, his ear against the ground.
"Hide the wagon and horses in the clump of cottonwoods," he ordered, tersely.

Springing to his feet, he ran to the top of the knoll above the hollow, where he again placed his ear to the ground.
Jones's practiced ear had detected the quavering rumble of far-away, thundering hoofs.

He searched the wide waste of plain with his powerful glass.