Below him, in the gut of that coulee, a small spring of clear water trickled out of a sandy hillside. Among the seepage grew clumps of willows. In that screen a man could lie perdu with his loop spread for a throw. If Red Mike and his friendly broncs came down to drink he still had a chance. If they smelled or sighted him and dodged Cold Spring they would bear down into the bed of Birch Creek. He would follow. It was no more than a mile or two. Or he would lie at Cold Spring. He still had hopes of snaring a mount. Small bands of wild horses would drift in to drink. Among the wild ones there was often an odd saddle horse, enjoying temporary escape from ranch or round-up. At any rate he did not propose to walk home. It wasn’t done! At the worst he could snare an unbroken horse, hog-tie him, pack the saddle down, and make the untamed one bear him somewhere. Robin was a rider. He preferred them gentle, but he could ride. So he trudged toward the spring, keeping to the low ground, hoping that Red Mike would not change his flighty horse mind about where he wanted to drink. Evidently Red Mike did. Robin lay behind the willows until mid-afternoon, parched by the heat, chafing at inaction. Of all the roving bands of horses none trooped into Cold Spring. The wild cattle came down, drank, lay in the grass until the slopes near by carried a thousand head of resting longhorns. Some got wind of him and departed in haste, snuffing and tossing their heads. It did seem to Robin as if that fifteen-mile tramp grew more threatening. He decided to take a chance on Birch Creek. It was no great way to the high banks that overlooked the deep sage-covered bottoms through which a lukewarm stream slunk like a great lazy snake, looping fold on fold. He stole away from Cold Spring with care to dodge the range cattle, to whom a man afoot was an unknown sight, a strange upright creature to be attacked or fled from as their bovine impulses chanced. A little before Robin gained the first cut-bank whence he could look into Birch Creek bottoms for a horse, he heard a shot, then a second and a third. Robin had a keen ear. He recognized those reports as from a rifle. It held no particular significance, beyond the fact that shooting argued riders somewhere near, and a rider could soon solve the problem of a mount for Robin Tyler. Since these shots came from the bottom directly below him, Robin broke into a trot to reach the rim of the bank and call to the man or men below, if they were within hearing distance. What he saw made him drop flat and do his looking through a fringe of long grass. Robin had grown up in a cow country. There was little pertaining to the range, lawful or unlawful, which had escaped his awareness. So he was at no loss to read the signs below.