"You are not used to passing sleepless nights," said the Texan. "When we are fairly launched into the Indian country you may not sleep so sound. Take hold and eat. A hearty eater on the plains generally stands travel best. To-morrow, it is likely, we'll have a fifty-mile ride or more, if those Black Hillers get sobered down to their work. They'll do well if they make their twenty to-day." Pond went and bathed his face and hands in the limpid water before eating, and as he expressed it, "rubbed the sleep" out of his eyes; then he went at the toothsome steak with appetite not at all impaired by the pure open air he was breathing. The meal, taken with comfort and deliberation, occupied a half hour or more, and as there were no dishes to wash, "clearing up things" only consisting in tossing the bones out of the way, wiping their knives on a bunch of grass, scouring them with a plunge or two in the dry sand, they were all ready for next meal-time. "Your horse hears something, so does mine," said the Texan, pointing to the animals, which suddenly stopped feeding, and with their ears pricked forward, looked off to the east-ward. "I can see nothing. What can alarm them!" said Pond. "They hear the tramp of the Black Hills party, I think. Horses have far better hearing than we have, and will feel a jar of the ground that would not attract our attention. I want no better sentinel than my mustang, and your Black Hawk seems to take to the watch by instinct. I will go up on my look-out post and see if anything is in sight." Slinging the strap of his field-glass over his shoulder, the Texan hurriedly climbed up the tree. Seated among the top-most limbs, he adjusted his glass and looked away to the northeast. "There they are!" he cried. "Who? What?" exclaimed Pond, rather nervously. "The Black Hillers, struggling along mighty careless. Their route covers half a mile in length; when in good marching order it should not cover a hundred yards, with scouts in the rear, front, and on both flanks, at twice the distance. That is the way we travel in Texas." "Wild Bill has been a scout so long I should think he would know all about it," said Pond. "A heap them scouts know who travel with Uncle Sam's troop's!" said the Texan, in a tone of contempt. "Let them ride with a gang of Texan Rangers a few months and they'd learn something. Your troops can't move, or stop to water, without sounding their bugles to tell the Indians where they are. In the morning, all day, and at night, it is toot, toot with their infernal horns, and the reds know just where to find 'em. One of our Texan Ranger bands will travel a hundred miles and you'll not hear noise enough to wake a coyote from them all. These Black Hillers travel slow to-day. They're sore-headed from their spree, I reckon." "They deserve to be. Drunkenness always punishes the drunkard. I have no pity for them." "Can you see any sign of them from where you stand?" asked the Texan.