This was at the line shack.

Several nights later, as Pete was riding his line, he noticed that Blue Smoke occasionally stopped and sniffed, and always toward the north.  Near the northwestern angle of the fence, Pete thought he could hear the distant drumming of hoofs.  Blue Smoke fretted and fought the bit.  Pete dismounted and peered into the darkness.  The rhythmic stride of a running horse came to him—­not the quick patter of a cow-pony, but the long, sweeping stride of a racer.

Then out of the night burst a rider on a foam-flecked horse that reared almost into the gate, which Pete unlooped and dragged back.

“That you, Brevoort?” called the horseman.

“He’s at the shack,” Pete shouted, as the other swept past.

“Looks like we’re goin’ to be right busy,” reflected Pete as he swung to the saddle.  “We’ll jest jog over to the shack and report.”

When he arrived at the line shack, Brevoort was talking with the hard-riding messenger.  Near them stood the thoroughbred, his flanks heaving, his neck sweat-blackened, his sides quivering with fatigue.  He had covered fifty miles in five hours.

“—­and countin’ the Concho stuff—­I’d say something like two hundred head,” the messenger was saying.  “Brent’ll be in to-morrow, long ’bout noon.  So far, she worked slick.  No trouble and a show of gettin’ through without any trouble.  Not much young stock, so they’re drivin’ fast.”

Brevoort turned to Pete.  “Take this horse over to the corral.  Tell Moody that Harper is in, and that the boys will be here in a couple of days.  He’ll know what to do.”

Pete rode at a high lope, leading the thoroughbred, and wondering why the messenger had not gone on to the corral.  Moody, the cook, a grizzled, heavy-featured man, too old for hard riding, expressed no surprise at Pete’s message, but awakened the Mexican stableman and told him to fetch up a “real one,” which the Mexican did with alertness, returning to the house leading another sleek and powerful thoroughbred.  “Take him over to the shack,” said Moody.  “Harper wants him.”  And he gave Pete a package of food which he had been preparing while the Mexican was at the stable.

When Pete returned to the line shack he found Brevoort sitting in the doorway smoking, and the messenger asleep on the ground, his head on his saddle.

“Here’s your horse,” said Brevoort, “and some chuck.”

Harper sat up quickly, too quickly for a man who had ridden as far as he had.  Pete wondered at the other’s hardihood and grit, for Harper was instantly on his feet and saddling the fresh horse, and incidentally cursing the Olla, Brent, and the universe in general, with a gusto which bespoke plenty of unspoiled vigor.

“Tell Brent the coast is clear,” said Brevoort as Harper mounted.

They could hear his horse getting into his stride long before the sound of his hoofbeats was swallowed up in the abyss of the night.