The hills began to look bigger, and kind of chilly and blue in the deep places. The Kid wished that he could find some of the boys. He was beginning to get hungry, and he had long ago begun to get tired. But he was undismayed, even when he heard a coyote yap-yap-yapping up a brushy canyon. It might be that he would have to camp out all night. The Kid had loved those cowboy yarns where the teller--who was always the hero--had been caught out somewhere and had been compelled to make a "dry camp." His favorite story of that type was the story of how Happy Jack had lost his clothes and had to go naked through the breaks. It was not often that he could make Happy Jack tell him that story--never when the other boys were around. And there were other times; when Pink had got lost, down in the breaks, and had found a cabin just--in--TIME, with Irish sick inside and a blizzard just blowing outside, and they were mad at each other and wouldn't talk, and all they had to eat was one weenty, teenty snow-bird, till the yearling heifer came and Pink killed it and they had beefsteak and got good friends again. And there were other times, that others of the boys could tell about, and that the Kid thought about now with pounding pulse. It was not all childish fear of the deepening shadows that made his eyes big and round while he rode slowly on, farther and farther into the breaks.
He still drove the cattle before him; rather, he followed where the cattle led. He felt very big and very proud--but he did wish he could find the Happy Family! Somebody ought to stand guard, and he was getting sleepy already.
Silver stopped to drink at a little creek of clear, cold water. There was grass, and over there was a little hollow under a rock ledge. The sky was all purple and red, like Doctor Dell painted in pictures, and up the, coulee, where he had been a little while ago, it was looking kind of dark. The Kid thought maybe he had better camp here till morning. He reined Silver against a bank and slid off, and stood looking around him at the strange hills with the huge, black boulders that looked like houses unless you knew, and the white cliffs that looked--queer--unless you knew they were just cliffs.
For the first time since he started, the Kid wished guiltily that his dad was here or--he did wish the bunch would happen along! He wondered if they weren't camped, maybe, around that point. Maybe they would hear him if he hollered as loud as he could. which he did, two or three times; and quit because the hills hollered back at him and they wouldn't stop for the longest time--it was just like people yelling at him from behind these rocks.
The Kid knew, of course, who they were; they were Echo-boys, and they wouldn't hurt, and they wouldn't let you see them.
They just ran away and hollered from some other place. There was an Echo-boy lived up on the bluff somewhere above the house. You could go down in the little pasture and holler, and the Echo-boy would holler back The Kid was not afraid--but there seemed to be an awful lot of Echo-boys down in these hills. They were quiet after a minute or so, and he did not call again.
The Kid was six, and he was big for his age; but he looked very little, there alone in that deep coulee that was really more like a canyon--very little and lonesome and as if he needed his Doctor Dell to take him on her lap and rock him.
It was just about the time of day when Doctor Dell always rocked him and told him stories--about the Happy Family, maybe. The Kid hated to be suspected of baby ways, but he loved these tunes, when his legs were tired and his eyes wanted to go shut, and Doctor Dell laid her cheek on his hair and called him her baby man. Nobody knew about these times--that was most always in the bed room and the boys couldn't hear.
The Kid's lips quivered a little. Doctor Dell would be surprised when he didn't show up for supper, he guessed. He turned to Silver and to his man ways, because he did not like to think about Doctor Dell just right now.
