A wide, shallow gully ran northwestward from a point near Red King, almost in a straight line toward the herd. Lawler urged the big horse into the gully and rode hard. The distance was several miles, but when Red King came to the gully end he flashed out of it like a streak of red flame. He was drawn down, instantly, however, snorting and pawing impatiently, while Lawler shielded his eyes with his hands and again scanned the country. He saw the herd; and as he watched it began to move. There were no men near the cattle. They started slowly, seemingly reluctant to leave the level. They moved sullenly, closely massed, their heads lowered, their tails drooping. The wind, now beginning to carry a vicious note with its whine, drove a heavy dust cloud against them, warning them. The wind was icy, giving the cattle a foretaste of what was to come. And mingling with the dust were fine, flinty snow particles that came almost horizontally against their rumps, stinging them, worrying them. They increased their pace, and soon were running with a swinging, awkward stride, straight toward the wire fence, several miles distant. If they saw Lawler they gave no sign, for they went lumbering on, snorting and bawling their apprehension. Lawler was about to start Red King toward them, when he noted movement on the level a little northwestward from the cattle. Peering intently, he saw two horsemen racing southward, a little distance ahead of the cattle, parallel with them. At first Lawler was certain the men were Davies and Harris, and he smiled, appreciating their devotion to duty. But when he saw them race past the cattle, not even halting to head them in the right direction--which would have been slightly eastward, so that they would enter the valley before reaching the fence--he frowned, wheeled Red King sharply, and sent him back into the gully from which he had emerged. "They're strangers, King," he said, shortly to the horse as the latter fled headlong down the gully toward the point from which he had started; "Davies and Harris wouldn't leave the herd with that norther coming on." The big horse made fast time down the gully. He brought Lawler to a point near the fence where it crossed the gully at about the instant the two riders were dismounting some distance away. Lawler rode out of the gully and brought Red King to a halt. There was no danger that the two men would discover him, for all objects in the vicinity were rapidly being blotted out by the dancing smother of dust that was riding the north wind. Lawler was to the north of the men, slightly eastward, and they could not have faced the smother of dust to look toward him. Lawler could dimly see the herd moving toward the fence; he could see the men plainly; and as he watched them his eyes narrowed. The big horse leaped with the word he caught from his rider's lips, racing lightly with the wind toward the fence where the men were working.