the Thundering Herd (1984) Read Online Free PDF

day he did not feel quite the same as in the gloaming of last night. Yet a sweetness stole pervadingly upon him. Glancing through the grove toward the camp where the first meeting with her had taken place, he missed the white wagons. That end of the grove was empty. The wagons were gone--and with them the girl. Tom experienced a blankness of thought, then a sense of loss and a twinge of regret. After this moment he thoughtfully went on eating his breakfast. Nothing was to come of the meeting. Still, her people were buffalo-hunters, too, and somewhere down in that wild country he might see her again. What a forlorn hope! Yet by cherishing it he reconciled himself to the fact that she was gone.
    After breakfast his curiosity led him to walk over to where her camp had been; and he trailed the wagon tracks out into the road, seeing that they headed toward the southwest. His grain of comfort gathered strength.
    "Our neighbors pulled out early," he remarked, halting where Pilchuck and Hudnall were packing.
    "Long before sunup," replied Hudnall. "Did you hear them, Jude?"
    "Huh! They'd waked the dead," growled Pilchuck. "Reckon Randall Jett had his reason for pullin' out."
    "Jett? Let's see. He was the man with the yellow beard. Come to think of it, he wasn't very civil."
    "I heard some talk about Jett uptown," went on Pilchuck. "'Pears I've met him somewheres, but it's slipped my mind. He's one of the hide-hunters that's got a doubt hangin' on him. Just doubt, it's only fair to say. Nobody knows anythin'. Jett has come out of the Panhandle twice with thousands of hides. He's made money."
    "Well, that's interestin'," replied Hudnall. "He's just been married. My wife had some talk yesterday with a woman who must have been Mrs. Jett. She was from Missouri an' had a grown daughter. Married a few weeks, she said. My wife got a hunch this woman an' daughter weren't keen about the hide-huntin' business."
    "Well, when you get down on the Staked Plains, you'll appreciate Mrs. Jett's feelings," remarked Pilchuck, dryly.
    Tom listened to this talk, much interested, recording it in memory.
    Then he asked if all the buffalo-hunters followed the same line of travel.
    "Reckon they do," replied Pilchuck. "There's only one good road for a couple of hundred miles. Then the hunters make their own roads."
    "Do they scatter all over the plains?" went on Tom.
    "Well, naturally they hang round the buffalo. But that herd is most as big as the Staked Plains."
    Tom had no knowledge of this particular part of Texas, but he did not fail to get a conception of magnitude.
    "When do we pull out?" he concluded.
    "Soon as we hitch up."
    In less than an hour the Hudnall outfit, with three good wagons drawn by strong teams, were on the move. The women rode with the drivers. Tom had the job of keeping the saddle horses in line.
    They did not want to head out into the wilderness, and on the start were contrary. After a few miles, however, they settled down to a trot and kept to the road.
    Soon the gleam of the town, and groves of trees, and columns of smoke, disappeared behind a rolling ridge, and all around appeared endless gray-green plain, bisected by a white road. No other wagons were in sight. Tom found the gait of his horse qualified to make long rides endurable. The lonely land was much to his liking.
    Jack-rabbits and birds were remarkable for their scarcity. The plain appeared endlessly undulating, a lonesome expanse, mostly gray, stretching away on all sides. The soil was good. Some day these wide lands would respond to cultivation.
    The Hudnall outfit traveled steadily until about four o'clock in the afternoon, making about twenty-five miles. A halt was called in a grove of elm trees that had long appealed to Tom's eye. It amused him to see the amiable contention between Pilchuck and Hudnall. The former, like all guides and scouts long used to outdoor life, wanted to camp at the first available spot where others had camped. But Hudnall sought a fresh and