Peering intently, he saw two horsemen racing southward, a little distance ahead of the cattle, parallel with them.
At first Lawler was certain the men were Davies and Harris, and he smiled, appreciating their devotion to duty.

But when he saw them race past the cattle, not even halting to head them in the right direction--which would have been slightly eastward, so that they would enter the valley before reaching the fence--he frowned, wheeled Red King sharply, and sent him back into the gully from which he had emerged.
"They're strangers, King," he said, shortly to the horse as the latter fled headlong down the gully toward the point from which he had started; "Davies and Harris wouldn't leave the herd with that norther coming on." The big horse made fast time down the gully.

He brought Lawler to a point near the fence where it crossed the gully at about the instant the two riders were dismounting some distance away.
Lawler rode out of the gully and brought Red King to a halt.

There was no danger that the two men would discover him, for all objects in the vicinity were rapidly being blotted out by the dancing smother of dust that was riding the north wind.

Lawler was to the north of the men, slightly eastward, and they could not have faced the smother of dust to look toward him.
Lawler could dimly see the herd moving toward the fence; he could see the men plainly; and as he watched them his eyes narrowed.