noon
He hesitated before several possible routes , the rain pouring down upon him , a chill breeze driving it into his face . If there had been hoofprints to show which way the boys had gone , the rain had washed them so that they looked dim and old and gave him little help . He chose what seemed to him the gorge which the boys would be most likely to follow -- especially at night and if they were in open pursuit of those who had driven the cattle off the benchland ; and that the cattle had been driven beyond this point was plain enough , for otherwise he would have overtaken stragglers long before this . It was nearing noon when he came out finally upon a little , open flat and found there Big Medicine and Pink holding a bunch of perhaps a hundred cattle which they had gleaned from the surrounding gulches and little `` draws '' which led into the hills . The two were wet to the skin , and they were chilled and hungry and as miserable as a she-bear sent up a tree by yelping , yapping dogs . Big Medicine it was who spied him first through the haze of falling water , and galloped heavily toward him , his horse flinging off great pads of mud from his feet as he came . `` Say ! ''