"Should we take all the boys, or just the best fighters?" he asked Augustus. That was the most worrisome question, in his view.

"I guess take 'em all," Gus said.

He was well aware that the men's fighting abilities varied greatly; still, it was a large party of Indians: the rangers ought to attack with a respectable force.

Call wasn't so sure. Half the men, at least, would just be in the way, in a running battle.

But the complexities of being a captain had begun to present themselves to him forcefully. If they just took the good fighters, who would take care of those who were left? As a group the less able men would be lucky to stay alive, even without Indians.

They'd get lost, or hunt badly; they might starve. But if he took them and they got killed or captured, their lives would be on his conscience, and Augustus's.

Another practical side of captaining was just beginning to worry him, and that was horses. It had been poor grazing lately, and they had had many hard days. None of the horses were in good flesh.

The skinniest had suffered as much as the men from the cold, sleety weather. Famous Shoes could have looked at the tracks and told them exactly what kind of condition the Indian horses were in, but he couldn't do that. However well or poorly the men fought, it would be the quality of their horseflesh that determined the outcome, if there was a long chase. It might be that their horses weren't a match for the Indian horses, in which case a chase would prove futile.

"What if we can't catch them? Our horses might be too poorly," Call asked.

"I don't know--but we've got to try," Augustus said. "That's a dead boy we're burying. We can't just go home and tell them we found a dead boy and didn't try to punish the killers, especially since they're in sight." "In your sight--I can't see them," Call said, but of course he agreed with the point. The boy was dead. It was the second time in his career that he had stumbled on a dead body, on the prairie--the first, long ago, had been a prospector of some kind. The chance of his finding the two bodies, on the wide plain, struck him-- if his route had varied by even fifty yards he might never have seen either body.

The boy, particularly, would have been hard to see, curled up like a young goat in some low grass. Yet Call had found him. It was curious--but there it was.

Neely Dickens, besides being quick to flare up, was also prone to attacks of severe pessimism if an undertaking of a dangerous nature was anticipated. When it became clear that they would all be required to go in pursuit of the raiding party, Neely immediately fell prey to dark forebodings.

"North--I thought we was through going north," he said. "I despise having to travel back toward the dern north, where it's so windy." "Then why'd you get in the rangers, anyway?" Teddy Beatty asked. "Rangers just go whichever direction they need to. You're in the wrong profession if you're picky about directions." "Couldn't get no other job," Neely admitted. "If I'd known I was going to have to go north I'd have tried to make it to Galveston instead." Augustus found the remark puzzling. Why would a fear of the north convince anybody that they ought to go to Galveston?

"Why Galveston, then, Neely?" he asked. The boy's grave had been hastily covered and the troop was ready to move in the direction Neely despised.

"Ships," Neely said. "If I was in Galveston I might could hide in a ship." "That don't make no sense," Long Bill observed. "Ships go north too." Neely Dickens was sorry he had ever brought the matter up. All the rangers were looking at him as if he were daft, which he wasn't. All his life he had heard stories about Comanche tortures. Several of the older rangers had described the practices to him. Comanches slit people open and poured hot coals into them while they were still alive.

"I won't have no Comanche cutting a hole in my belly and pouring in hot coals," he said, by way of explanation of his dislike of the northerly direction.

"Shut up that talk--let's go," Call said.

The men had been blue and apprehensive since Captain Scull left anyway--dwelling on the prospect of torture would only make matters worse. He knew from experience that when morale began to slip among a group of tired, ill-fed, nervous men, a whole troop could soon be put at risk, and he didn't intend to let that happen, not on his first try at being a captain.

He turned his horse and stopped the troop for a moment.

"You need to think about your horses first and foremost," he said. "Be sure their feet are sound. A lame horse will get you scalped quicker than anything in this country." "And be sure to sight your rifles every morning, too," Augustus added. "Bouncing around all day in a saddle scabbard can throw a gun off sight.

If a red warrior forty feet away is about to put an arrow in you, you don't want to have to stop and fix your sight." Teddy Beatty resented such instruction, particularly since the two captains were both younger than he was.

"I can't think about horses and guns all the time," he said, in a tone of complaint. "There's too much time for thinking out here on the plains." "Think about whores, then," Augustus said.

"Pretend you won enough money in a card game to buy fifty whores." "Buy fifty whores and do what with them?" Long Bill asked. "That's too many whores to worry with even if I wasn't a married man --and I am a married man." "It's just something to think about that's more cheerful than torture," Augustus explained.

"Survival's more cheerful than torture," Call said. "Watch your weapons and your horses and stay close to the group. That way you won't suffer nothing worse than hearing Gus McCrae talk about whores seven days out of the week." Neely Dickens heard the ^ws, but the ^ws didn't change his opinion. In his view it was hot coals in the belly for sure, if a man lingered too long in the north, in which direction, led by their young captains, they were even then tending.

Neely still thought the best plan would be to make for Galveston and hide out in a ship.

Maudy Clark only wanted to die--die and have no more freezing, no more outrage, no more having to worry about what Tana, the cruelest of her captors, would do to her at night, when they camped. Tana led the horse she was tied to himself; sometimes, even as they rode, he would drop back to pull her hair or beat her with a mesquite switch. Those torments were minor compared to what Tana and the other three Comanches did to her in camp. She had never expected to have to bear such abuse from men, and yet she still had two living children, Bessie and Dan, and could not allow herself to think too much about the luxury of death.