Old Man Merridew lifted a skinny arm and pointed it the way his hawk-beak nose was already pointing. “They’s a-comin’,” he said. “There’s the dust!” “Maybe that’s the posse,” Bray suggested. Merridew spat. “Them’s buffler,” he said. “Maybe eight, ten thousand of them … maybe more.” Nobody argued with Old Man. He had eyes better than any eagle, and a nose to smell buffalo as far as a man could see. The Old Man was older than anybody knew, and looked old enough in the face to have worn out three bodies … but he was wiry, strong, and tough as any old Cheyenne or Comanche. North they drove, with the Drinking Gourd hanging in the sky before them. North they rode, and B……. the flamboyant, good-natured, hell-for-leather B……had become an outlaw.
