about three o'clock
Farther , wind and sun had dried the ridge-turf to its normal firmness and baked the dobe flats till in places they were of their old flinty hardness . Yet Piegan crossed at a lope places where neither MacRae nor I could glimpse a sign -- and when we would come again to soft ground the trail of the three would rise up to confront us , and bid us marvel at the keenness of his vision . He had a gift that we lacked . We followed in the wake of Piegan Smith with what speed the coulée-gashed prairie permitted , and about three o'clock halted for half an hour to let our horses graze ; we had been riding steadily over four hours , and it behooved us to have some thought for our mounts . Within ten minutes of starting again we dipped into a wide-bottomed coulée and came on the place where the three had made their first night-camp -- a patch of dead ashes , a few half-burned sticks , and the close-cropped grass-plots where each horse had circled a picket-pin . Beyond these obvious signs , there was nothing to see . Nothing , at least , that I could see except faint tracks leading away from the spot .