With the morning they were early in the saddle. It was so hot that Mr. Wallace had decided to lay off for several hours toward the middle of the day, making up for lost time by the early start, also a ride after nightfall, when the cooler airs would creep down from the mountains ahead. They could plainly see these mighty elevations now at any time they chose to cast their eyes up and down the horizon toward the west. "But the atmosphere out here on the level plains is mighty deceptive, you must remember, boys," Zander Forbes had warned them. "A horseman can keep riding for ten hours steadily in a straight line, and at the end of that time seem to be hardly any closer to the mountains than when he started." "But we understood there'd be only two days of hard riding after we headed into the west!" remonstrated Lanky. "Well, by late afternoon to-morrow we ought to be inside of fifteen or twenty miles of the foothills. But like as not we'll have to make a third camp on the prairie." This turned out to be the case; and when the towering Rockies seemed to be so close, the boys wondered why Mr. Wallace decided to defer the remainder of their ride until the next morning. "Fresh mounts in good condition," the gentleman explained, "are worth much more to us than the gaining of a little time." In his younger years Mr. Wallace had been considerable of a sportsman, taking his holidays each fall in a camping trip to the Canada bush, where he hunted the moose in a primitive wilderness. Of late he had not taken any such trips, and his health had suffered in consequence, which helped to bring about this present outing. The coyotes were as noisy as ever that night. Besides, Lanky heard a new and more thrilling sound, with which he was making his first acquaintance. Jerry told them it was the long-drawl howl of the big gray timber wolf, savage creatures that traveled in packs, and when beset by hunger seldom hesitated to attack a lone hunter. "If yuh find yuhself beset by sech a pack o' varmints," was the sage advice of the veteran range rider and hunter, "don't keer a picayune 'bout showin' the white feather. If so be thar's a tree handy, shin up it like a streak. Then take yuh pick o' the pesky wolves an' knock 'em over in a row." "I tried fighting a pack once," observed Zander, with a grimace. "Got the marks of them fangs on my legs and arms to this day. I'd have gone under to boot, only a storm broke and a terrific peal of thunder and a blinking flash of lightning as a tree was struck close by scared the graycoats off and gave me a chance to climb a tree." With the coming of morning the journey was resumed, and the rising sun saw them almost half-way to the base of the foothills that served as an advance guard to the mountains themselves.