The elk was cut up in the morning and the meat passed around, the boys and Maybe Dixon getting flour, beans, and coffee in return. Fresh meat was a rarity and the boys enjoyed their steaks and pot roasts exceedingly. In return for an extra juicy steak Mrs. Socket baked them some more bread and also a batch of pancakes which Si declared tasted "like hum." Once again they passed on, with the same long procession of emigrants before and behind them. Other springs had been found, and soon some heavy rains caused the dried-up springs to flow again, so nobody suffered quite as much from thirst. But now the road was bad and more than once poor Darling and the Socket horses went up to their breasts in the sand and dirt. This made extra work all around and there was constant grumbling all along the line. "We'll earn all the gold we ever git," said one old man to Mark. "I'm goin' back." And he started for home that very afternoon, and more than a dozen followed. But the majority merely set their teeth and kept on, trusting that in the end they would be well rewarded for their pains. Two days later Mark fell in with a pioneer he had met several times before. This man, whose name was Bender, nodded pleasantly and walked with Mark for several miles. "I believe you're the lad that showed up Sag Ruff and his crooked ways," remarked Bender. "I am." "I met Ruff three days ago. He feels mighty sore over what happened." "Is he bound west?" queried Mark. "Yes, and if I were you I'd keep my eyes peeled for him, lad. He's a bad egg if ever I saw one." "I know that. He spoke of me, did he?" mused Mark. "That he did. He said it was the one desire of his life to square up with you." "He told you that?" "Oh, no, not me. He wouldn't dare to speak to me--I'd plug him quick. He was talking to a pal of his--fellow by the name of Gannon--Soapy Gannon they call him. He's another bad egg, but too cowardly to be very harmful. Soapy is Ruff's tool for dirty work when there ain't much danger. I was at the camp and overheard the talk between them." "Then I had better watch out," said Mark, with a serious look on his face. "Do so by all means. You don't want to take chances with a fellow like Sag Ruff--nor with Soapy Gannon either," went on the man, and then talked of something else. The taste of fresh meat had made the three boys eager to try their hand at bringing down more game, and one day Mark and Bob took to a side trail, thinking they might stir up some prairie hens if nothing larger. Both had shotguns, having borrowed one weapon from Josiah Socket. It was a cool, clear day, with a suggestion of fall in the air, and the boys felt in the best of spirits as they hurried along. They had agreed to meet Si, Dixon, and the Sockets at the ford of a river ten miles further to the westward. "I can tell you one thing, Bob," said Mark, "this beats sitting in a stuffy office, copying legal papers."