At exactly midnight he was wide awake, lying on his back, looking with unblinking eyes at the ceiling, all his senses aroused and alert, his nerves and muscles at a tension.
He did not know what had awakened him, though he was convinced that it had been something strange and unusual.

It had happened to him before; several times when cattle had stampeded; once when a Mexican freighter at a cow camp had rose in the night to slip his knife into a puncher with whom he had had trouble during the day.

Incidentally, except for Calumet, the Mexican would have made his escape.

It had happened to him again when a band of horse thieves had attempted to run off some stock; it had never happened unless something unusual was going on.
And so he was certain that something unusual was going on now, and he lay still, looking around him, to make sure that what was happening was not happening in his room.

He turned his head and looked at Dade.
That young man was breathing heavily and regularly.