By the time he reached his position on the ridge, the shooting had stopped. It had taken that long before Tom and Bodine realized that he was gone. There was a wait of considerable length before he saw Bodine run from his cover behind the smokehouse to a new spot behind the outhouse. While he couldn’t understand what he was saying, Hawk could hear him yelling some instructions to Tom. And after a few seconds more, Tom left his position at the corner of the porch, jumped down, ran to the front of the barn, and disappeared inside. It was only a few minutes more before he heard Tom shouting from inside the barn, which Hawk guessed was to tell Bodine he was gone for sure. To confirm Hawk’s guess, Bodine came out from behind the outhouse and walked to the back corner of the corral. He was joined there moments later by Tom, who came out the back door of the barn, and Pressley, who had taken cover behind his forge. Glancing back at the forge, Hawk could see the mousy little man still crouched behind it, but there was still no sign of the two men Hawk was watching for.

Luckily for Tom Pointer, most of the horses had not strayed very far from the trading post. Some were wandering back to the barnyard, while some others gathered at the edge of the river. With a little help from Booth and his partner, it wouldn’t be a great deal of trouble to round them up and herd them back into the corral. To Hawk’s disappointment, Tom was charged with the job of herding them back in all by himself when Bodine went back inside the store. Reuben volunteered to help him, however, knowing it would be difficult for one man to do it. When the sudden stampede of the horses had happened, Reuben had been in the process of shoeing Mose Avery’s gray mare. When the shooting started, he and Mose had taken cover behind his forge. And when the shooting was over, Mose chose to stay with his mare while Reuben helped corral the loose horses.