Bull Hunter by Max Brand

He went out the back door of the hotel so that few people might mark his leaving, and cut for the woods. Once in them, he changed his direction to the east, heading for the lower, rolling hills in that direction. He turned back when the lights of the town had drawn into one small, glimmering ray. Then this, too, went out, and with it the pain of leaving Pete Reeve became acute. He felt lost and alone, that keen mind had guided him so long. As he stalked along with the great swinging strides through the darkness, the holster rubbed on his thigh and he remembered Pete. Truly he had come into the hands of Pete Reeve a child, and he was leaving him as a man.

The dawn found him forty miles away and still swinging strongly down the winding road. It was better country now. The desert sand had disappeared, and here the soil supported a good growth of grass that would fatten the cattle. It was a cheerful country in more ways than the greenness of the grass, however. There were no high mountains, but a continual smooth rolling of hills, so that the landscape varied with every half-mile he traveled. And every now and then he had to jump a runlet of water that murmured across his trail.