George walked back to the camp, picked up his rifle, and after unfastening the lasso with which his horse was confined, he jumped on the animal’s back without saddle or bridle and rode away in the darkness, paying no heed to a bray of remonstrance from Bony who followed as far as the length of his lariat would allow him to go. He rode out on the prairie for a hundred yards or more, and then stopped his horse and listened again. The animal stood perfectly quiet for a few seconds, looking first one way and then another, and turning his ears toward all points of the compass, and apparently satisfied with the result of his reconnoissance, he put down his head and began cropping the grass. “Hold up, here!” exclaimed George, seizing the horse by the mane and tapping him gently on the side of his head with the muzzle of his rifle to make him turn around. “We have nothing to be frightened at yet—that’s evident. Now, old fellow, I shall leave you loose. Keep your ears open and wake us up if you hear anything!” George rode back to camp and sought his blanket feeling a little more at his ease. He had as much faith in his horse as he had in Zeke (the latter used to say that he could smell an Indian or a Greaser at night as far as he could see him in the daytime), and since the animal could not discover anything suspicious, it was as good evidence as he wanted that there was nothing to fear. No doubt some of the wild members of the herd felt as nervous and uneasy as he did, and took their own way to show it.