"Well, if you're not willing to trust him, get down, and if we can find my ant-hill again we can sit there until day comes. It certainly can't be very far off." Jack looked around the horizon. "I believe that's day coming now," he said, pointing to a place where the sky seemed a little lighter than elsewhere. "If it is, we won't have long to wait before getting our direction." Donald dismounted, and they sat there on the ground waiting. Presently the light grew, and it was now certain that this was the dawn; so the east was found and the points of the compass were located. Gradually it grew light. As soon as they could see a short distance, the boys started back to the camp, Jack walking over the damp ground, of which he picked up a few pounds on his shoes and spurs, so that at short intervals he was obliged to stop and clean off the mud. By this time, however, it had stopped raining, and the soil began to dry. Presently, when it was good daylight, though before the sun had risen, they met half a dozen men from the camp, starting out to look for the cattle. McIntyre heard Jack's story with a broad grin; but he frowned as he thought of the cattle scattered, no one knew where. "Did you see anything of Jack Mason?" he asked. "No," answered Jack; "nothing. Two or three times as I was pushing in to turn the cattle, I thought I heard somebody yell behind me, but I could not be sure, for I was making all the noise I could myself." "Well," said McIntyre, as he turned his horse, "go in and get something to eat and fresh horses, and then come on. It may take us a long time to gather those cattle, or maybe Mason has 'em wound up somewhere now." The cowboys rode off, and Jack and Donald were soon in camp eating breakfast. Jack's slicker in his fall had been split from neck to skirt and until mended would be useless. Hugh, who with the cook and horse wrangler had remained in the camp, saw it, and told Jack to leave it with him, and he would sew up the tear. "It won't be of much use," he commented, "in real rainy weather, but it'll keep you dry in a drizzle." Hugh had smiled at Jack's story of his attempts to dodge the stampeding cattle, and had told him that he was mighty lucky to have got off as he did. A little later, Jack and Donald, mounted on fresh horses, rode out to take the trail of the stampeded cattle, but they had gone only a short distance, when from the top of a hill they saw, far off, a bunch of cattle coming. One of the first men they saw when they met the herd was Jack Mason, and the two young men rode up beside him to ask an account of his adventures, and to relate their own.