“Now, when you get north of 36—here’s where it runs—you have only got the Salt Fork of the Arkansas between you and the main Arkansas. It comes out of Kansas not so very far from where you’ll hit the Kansas line.” “It sounds right far,” said Jim Nabours. “Yes: when you get up in there you’re coming into the edge of a thousand miles of open range, the best cattle ground out of doors; and there isn’t a cow in it from one end to the other. That country’s waiting for cows. It needs them as much as our cows need a market. “Well, you’ll find out all these things as you come to them.” Always scant of speech, he turned away, swung into the saddle. Reaching down he held out a hand to Cinquo, the boy herder, who had followed him. “We done saved her, Mister Sher’f,” said the boy. But Dan McMasters did not cast a glance back of him to the white-topped cart which made the only home of Taisie Lockhart. “Now,” said Jim Nabours, turning to his own horse, “everybody can start like he pleases except us. Afore I need a map I need some cows. Come on, men, we got to foller out one more run. Lucky if we get seven and a half cows to Aberlene.” [Illustration: _A Paramount Picture._ _North of 36._ IN THE MIDST OF THE RIVER CROSSING.] CHAPTER XXXI THE JONAH “MOVE ’em out, boys! We’ll see what’ll happen next.” Nabours spoke with a half sigh in his voice. The departure of McMasters and of the soldiers had left a strange feeling of loneliness among the Del Sol men. They began to brood, to lose morale. This was after two more days of riding, combing cattle out of the timber along the Washita, which very luckily had caught and left partly nugatory the last run of the much harassed herd. The hour was not yet late; and although the tired trail hands had little enough of sleep, there was no active murmuring, and the order of the day once more began, the long line of longhorns stringing out, the guides on either side. The cattle paced on methodically enough, but the arrival at the Washita was so late in the day that the trail boss concluded not to cross until the following morning. They found the banks as McMasters had said—high and steep; and the river had swimming water. But much to their joy they found a good-sized raft which some one, probably Rudabaugh and his men, for reasons of their own, had spent some time and care in building. “Well, there won’t many of them need it now,” commented Nabours, “and we do. That’s the first luck we’ve had. I’m scared to swim that girl again.” They crossed the carts without difficulty in the morning, and the entire herd swam over easily, a narrow trail being plain on the other side. Once more on their way, and with the Washita behind them, a certain feeling of light-heartedness came to the trail drovers. They sang cheerily to their cows as they rode alongside, caught the feel of the new country lying on ahead.