“Yep, Lin, he’s sure leavin’,” added the other comrade.  “Why, he’s traveled a bee-line for days!  I’ll bet he’s seen us many a time.  Wildfire’s about as smart as any man.  He was born wild, an’ his dam was born wild, an’ there you have it.  The wildest of all wild creatures—­a wild stallion, with the intelligence of a man!  A grand hoss, Lin, but one thet’ll be hell, if you ever ketch him.  He has killed stallions all over the Sevier range.  A wild stallion thet’s a killer!  I never liked him for thet.  Could he be broke?”

“I’ll break him,” said Lin Slone, grimly.  “It’s gettin’ him thet’s the job.  I’ve got patience to break a hoss.  But patience can’t catch a streak of lightnin’.”

“Nope; you’re right,” replied Bill.  “If you have some luck you’ll get him—­mebbe.  If he wears out his feet, or if you crowd him into a narrow canyon, or ran him into a bad place where he can’t get by you.  Thet might happen.  An’ then, with Nagger, you stand a chance.  Did you ever tire thet hoss?”

“Not yet.”

“An’ how fur did you ever run him without a break?  Why, when we ketched thet sorrel last year I rode Nagger myself—­thirty miles, most at a hard gallop.  An’ he never turned a hair!”

“I’ve beat thet,” replied Lin.  “He could run hard fifty miles—­mebbe more.  Honestly, I never seen him tired yet.  If only he was fast!”

“Wal, Nagger ain’t so durned slow, come to think of thet,” replied Bill, with a grunt.  “He’s good enough for you not to want another hoss.”

“Lin, you’re goin’ to wear out Wildfire, an’ then trap him somehow—­is thet the plan?” asked the other comrade.

“I haven’t any plan.  I’ll just trail him, like a cougar trails a deer.”

“Lin, if Wildfire gives you the slip he’ll have to fly.  You’ve got the best eyes for tracks of any wrangler in Utah.”

Slone accepted the compliment with a fleeting, doubtful smile on his dark face.  He did not reply, and no more was said by his comrades.  They rolled with backs to the fire.  Slone put on more wood, for the keen wind was cold and cutting; and then he lay down, his head in his saddle, with a goatskin under him and a saddle-blanket over him.

All three were soon asleep.  The wind whipped the sand and ashes and smoke over the sleepers.  Coyotes barked from near in darkness, and from the valley ridge came the faint mourn of a hunting wolf.  The desert night grew darker and colder.

The Stewart brothers were wild-horse hunters for the sake of trades and occasional sales.  But Lin Slone never traded nor sold a horse he had captured.  The excitement of the game, and the lure of the desert, and the love of a horse were what kept him at the profitless work.  His type was rare in the uplands.

These were the early days of the settlement of Utah, and only a few of the hardiest and most adventurous pioneers had penetrated the desert in the southern part of that vast upland.  And with them came some of that wild breed of riders to which Slone and the Stewarts belonged.  Horses were really more important and necessary than men; and this singular fact gave these lonely riders a calling.