Besides, the silent man behind was astride the better animal.
Midnight, and they pulled up amid the deeper gloom of a great, overhanging bluff, having numerous trees near its summit.

There was the glow of a distant fire upon their left, which reddened the sky, and reflected oddly on the edges of a vast cloud-mass rolling up threateningly from the west.

Neither knew definitely where they were, although Murphy guessed the narrow stream they had just forded might be the upper waters of the Tongue.

Their horses stood with heads hanging wearily down, their sides rising and falling; and Hampton, rolling stiffly from the saddle, hastily loosened his girth.
"They 'll drop under us if we don't give them an hour or two," he said, quietly.

"They 're both dead beat." Murphy muttered something, incoherent and garnished with oaths, and the moment he succeeded in releasing the buckle, sank down limp at the very feet of his horse, rolling up into a queer ball.