For a few minutes they rode without talking, the Wilder boys a
trifle envious of the reputation their friends had achieved and the
chums trying to get accustomed to riding with a rifle bumping their
backs.

They soon got the swing of it, however, and, as the ponies settled
into an easy, steady lope, Tom exclaimed:

"Larry, we're in the saddle and on the plains at last."

"Like it, what?" queried Horace.

"It's what we've been dreaming of for months," declared Larry.
"Only, I say, Mr. Wilder, let's drop Megget. All we did was to get
away from him."

"As you like," smiled the ranchman, "but that's something."




CHAPTER VII

A RACE IN THE MOONLIGHT

Now through waving grass up to their knees, now through stretches
of sage brush the hunters rode. Three or four times they caught
sight of cattle in the distance, which Horace eagerly declared
belonged to the Half-Moon, explaining that the biggest herds were