et a human being in
the last fifty miles. Yet there was plenty of life. They were never
out of sight of cattle--not the big herds as Davy thought it would
be--just a few here and there. There were some horses around the
little pole barns off the roadway. High up on distant hills, bands of
sheep were grazing.

Overhead, but not too high, hawks skimmed the levels or tilted over
knolls and hills in search of a quarry; larks gathered in flights for
a final powwow before beginning the long trip southward. Magpies
flitted through the shrubbery of the creek banks. In crossing a little
wooden bridge near a waterfall, Davy saw an object in the water, then
in the air, and then in the water where the spray fell and where foam
formed. Later, he was to know this little slate-colored bird as the
water ouzel, a bird that was neither wader nor swimmer, yet took his
subsistence from the foam and spray.

"That road leads to Laramie," said Welborn pointing out a trail to the
right. "Laramie is closer to our place, and one less mountain range to
cross."

"Why didn't we come that way?" asked Davy.

"Well, the big circus didn't show in Laramie, and I had to get to
Cheyenne for contact. There I met a fellow who freighted me down with
pump tools and I had to take back some of the wrenches I borrowed.
Then this fellow made an appointment for Cheyenne, and I would not
have missed the appointment for anything."

"Oh yeah," said Davy, "I suppose out here, the matter of a few
mountain ranges is all in a day's work. Anyhow, we are seeing some
country, and the lizzie is going fine."

For several miles it was downhill and around many hairpin turns. Then
many small streams were crossed and followed. Several times the sun
seemed to set, only to reappear again through a cleft in the hills.
Where the terrain was level enough, hundreds of jack rabbits were
seen. They were not the nervous, string-halt jacks of the prairies,
but the smaller black-tailed variety.

And then they came to a store and filling station. "Well of all the
places for a filling station," exclaimed Davy. "Many times I've seen
'em located at places where there was little business, but I never
before saw one located where there was absolutely no business. What's
the big idea?"

"He is probably like another fellow I know," answered Welborn. "He
wanted to get somewhere, where he wouldn't see anyone. But at that, he
does some business, seemingly as much as he wants."

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