Two Spuds was inclined to stay in bed until he remembered what it was that woke him in the first place. A big damned whooomph! out there someplace. He tried to forget it and go back to sleep, but it gnawed at the back of his mind like mice in a sack of oats. There was nothing out on that prairie that could blow up. On a Saturday night, it might have been ranch kids, bored and drunk. Get hold of a few sticks of dynamite, blow up a steer for the pure hell of it. Such things had been known to happen, but they required the combustible combination of liquor and young cowpokes. He fretted until he could stand it no more. Finally he rose, stuffed coal into the stove and lit it, pulled on his jeans and boots, stepped outside to pee. He sniffed at the wind, which carried a faint tang of burning rubber. The wind came from the northwest, the same direction as the explosion. There was nothing out there except sagebrush and buffalo grass, all of it frozen stiff and buried under a thin layer of snow. Nothing that might burn in this weather, not even a haystack. He stepped back into the cabin, grabbed his sheepskin coat and heavy gloves and an old wool sheepherder’s hat that would keep a blizzard out of a man’s ears.

The pinto was fractious when he saddled it. He had to give it a brisk tug with the curb bit a time or two to remind it who was boss. Once in the saddle, he followed the smell of burning rubber. As soon as the pinto topped the rise north of his cabin, he saw it. A big automobile, burned down to a smoldering hulk. He lifted the reins, gave the pinto a little heel, rocked it into a canter, sticking to the road, taking a circular path to the burning car. Better go the long way round than cut across the prairie and have the pinto break its leg in a sinkhole in the dark.